Hear Her Calling
by Wysawyg
Summary: When a veteran marine friend of their father calls the boys for help when mysterious deaths start occurring on his fledgling cruise, it’s not long before the boys end up in over their heads. Hurt!Dean and some Sammy!whumping for good measure. LongFic.
1. Chapter 1

**Title:** Hear Her Calling

**Author:** Wysawyg

**Summary: **A veteran marine friend of their father calls the boys for help when mysterious deaths start occurring on his fledgling cruise. It's not long before the boys end up in over their heads. Hurt!Dean and some Sammy!whumping for good measure.

**Disclaimer: **The Winchesters belong to Kripke and the CW. I am but a poor player who struts and frets her hour upon the stage and then is hear no more.

**Beta: **Beta'd by the fabulous TraSan who correctly my hap-hazard tenses and took time out of her own writing and duck-torture to make this story better than it otherwise would have been. Also beta'd by Heather03nmg who named me queen of the run-on sentences though I don't know what she means and it can't be that I just tend to string sentences together on and on and on to the point where the character surely must have run out of breath... right?

**Timeline: **Mid-Season 2, after Sammy has found out The Big Secret.

**Pairings: **None, Gen.

**Notes: **Title comes from a folk song. I won't mention which one yet 'cos it'll give away too much of the plot.

* * *

"Guess what, Sammy?" Dean sauntered into the motel room far too cheerfully for what should be a severe hangover, "We're going on a cruise!" Dean slapped down a brochure close to where Sam was resting his head on the rickety plywood that passed for a table.

"Wha?" Sam said, lifting his head and ignoring the stab of pain from the lights. His mish-mashed memory informed him it had been his brother's idea to drink the tequila which is why it was entirely unfair that Sam was the one left with the after-effect, "Dean, we can't afford a cruise." He paused and lifted his head up, "Can we? What the hell did we get up to last night?"

"I," Dean said with a grin, "Got up to two incredibly gorgeous blondes. The only action you got was hugging the toilet. Anyway, we're not paying. Got a phone call last night while you were professing your eternal love to a pot plant. It was one of Dad's old marine buddies. He's started up some cruise business and is having a few teething troubles of the potentially demonic kind, wants us to come take a look."

Sam tugged the brochure into his line of sight and stared at the glossy front cover which depicted a large gleaming white cruise ship in the middle of water so clear and blue it had to be photo-shopped. 'Boot Camp Cruises' the headline read in camouflage letter with the smaller lettering of 'Kierton Cruises' proclaiming the company name. "An adventure cruise?"

"Like I said, he's a former marine or veteran marine as Dad always insisted we call them. Left the service for some reason and figured a way to fleece rich people, luxury cruises with a spice of danger. Sadly the spice of danger seems to be a bit much as two people have died, one in each of the most recent cruises. Took a header off the back of the boat."

"What's to say that they didn't just slip while trying to recreate Titanic?"

"First of all, serious minus points for admitting that you've seen Titanic, the chick flick to end all chick flicks. Secondly, because that was on the front of the boat." Sam could've sworn Dean was deliberately making more noise with those clodhopper boots of his, "First death they wrote off as suicide, even though the guy seemed to be living the dream for all intents and purposes. Second death got the suspicions up."

"Nothing that screams supernatural though." Sam was hoping his brother would go away so he could finish his coffee and crawl back into bed to pretend the world didn't exist.

"Uh-huh. 'cos how many times has it ever not been supernatural? I swear we should investigate ourselves to figure out how we always manage to get those cases. Even Bobby said he once had a werewolf case that turned out to be a bad case of beastiality and some very, very kinky women." Dean paused and threw his head back in a chuckle, "Man, that was a good story. Anyway, if it does turn out just to be some depressed rich people, we still get a free cruise. Jerry, that's Dad's friend, is gonna bankroll the whole thing for us."

"We had the Benders." Sam pointed out.

Dean shrugged, raising a hand to the shoulder where a glossy scar remained the legacy of close encounter with a hot poker, "Don't remind me and I'm still not sure there was something wigging in the supernatural way 'bout them."

"Just 'cos a little girl got the drop on you." Sam teased before taking another long gulp of coffee in the hopes that the dark beverage would win against the sludgy feeling of the hangover.

"Uh-huh and need I remind you who got their ass kidnapped by a bunch of rednecks which necessitated big brother riding to the rescue?" Dean asked, waltzing over to kitchen and snitching a beer out of the fridge.

"Still got beaten by a little girl," Sam taunted. It wasn't that often that he had got one over on Dean in their childhood but Sam had learnt to make the best of what he did get. He took one glance at his brother's drinking and could almost feel himself turn a shade of green, "How can you drink this morning?"

"Hair of the dog," Dean jauntily replied, tilting the bottleneck in Sam's direction in a mock-toast, "Or should that be hair of the werewolf in our profession. Though hair of the werewolf would probably need to be whiskey for a bigger bite." Dean clashed his teeth together in demonstration, "So you about ready to head out?"

Sam raised his head to his brother, staring at him out of pained, foggy eyes, "You are kidding, right?"

"What's the matter, Sammy? Don't fancy a nice, winding road? Car swerving around the corners."

Sam gulped back the rising nausea, "Fuck you," He swore through clenched teeth, "And it's Sam."

"Whatever, Sammy."

Sam gripped tight around his now empty coffee mug, resisting the urge to toss it at his brother's stubborn head. He doubted there were enough brain cells left in his head to damage, "How urgent is the job? When does the next cruise leave?"

"Check the literature, geekboy." Dean replied, motioned to the brochure he'd left at Sam's table.

Sam didn't want to read. That was a rarity but hardly surprising when just squinting at the text on the front page was enough to make his world tilt a little and make the drumbeat of a headache pick up tempo. "How about you do some research for once?"

"Jeez," Dean snatched the cruise brochure up and started to leaf through it. "Last time I buy you tequila."

"As I recall, you weren't the one buying it." Sam pointed out, reaching for his money clip which he knew was a few notes lighter.

"I suggested it, that's almost as good as buying," Dean replied, flicking past pages without even looking leading Sam towards the suspicion that his brother was trying to wind him up enough to take over. Sam wasn't going to give in this time. "And who was it playing pool for three hours to get you that money, eh?"

"And who was it stopped you from getting glassed when you fleeced the same damn guy out of two hundred dollars?"

Dean just shrugged, casual as usual about any matter pertaining to his own health, "I could have handled it and it's not my fault that the guy kept playing, too stupid to know when he's being hustled." Finally Dean stopped on a page of the brochure, obviously having given up on his most recent 'irritate Sammy' strategy, "Next cruise is three weeks from now."

"No rush then," Sam said with some relief, thinking lovingly about crawling into bed, pulling a cover over his head and pretending the world, or at the very least his brother, didn't exist.

"It'll take a couple of days for us to drive there." Dean said, "And then there's your training."

There's something in Dean's tone which immediately alerted Sam. That amused note mixed with smug satisfaction and he just knew that Dean had wanted to say this since he first walked in the motel door, letting an unholy amount of sunshine in. Sam was not going to rise to the bait, not this time, just this once he won't… "What training?" Damn.

"Why, for your new job of course." Dean stated with a light air, opening up the brochure to reveal a nestled contract, no doubt what he was hoping Sam would just happen across. "Sam Malone, barman to the rich and famous, well, the rich."

"Sam Malone? My pseudonym is the skirt-chasing idiot from Cheers?" Sam sounded horrified, reaching up to snatch the blindingly white paper from his brother's grasp, "What the hell, Dean? I thought you said Dad's friend was bankrolling us?"

"Did I? I meant he's bankrolling me." Dean eased himself down into a chair, swigging the beer back, "I will be Nathaniel Edenridge the third. I always thought I'd make a good Nathaniel. Call me Nate," Dean said with a wink and a finger gesture which looks like it belonged on Dallas.

The coffee cup shook in Sam's hand and he decided it was a good thing that his weird telekinesis hadn't manifested other than once or there'd currently be a coffee mug shaped dent in his brother's head, "Don't you ever get tired of screwing me over?"

A hurt look flashed in Dean's eyes for a millisecond before being replaced by Dean's habitual nothing-hurts-me mask, "Damn, you are so pissy when you are hungover. How about applying the mega-brain to the situation just for a few seconds and giving your dear old brother the benefit of the doubt?" Dean reached over and tapped Sam on the head.

Sam swatted the hand away with more force than was absolutely necessary, "I really don't have the time for the latest Dean Fucking Winchester balls and bravado master plan thanks. I'm sure there'll be plenty of time for you to recite it in the car journey so let's just forget it for now."

Dean slammed the bottle down so hard on the table that foam from the beer shot up to bubble over the top, "Fuck you, Sammy." He pushed his chair back, grabbed his jacket and slung it over his shoulder, heading towards the door, "I'm going out for supplies. Be back in an hour and we are leaving, you better have this whole place packed up and ready to go." Without even giving Sam a chance to reply, he walked out of the door.

-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-

True to Dean's word, he returned an hour later almost on the dot. Sam had initially decided to ignore his brother and had remained in exactly the same spot for ten minutes despite the fact his body would rather be curled up in bed. His mind however had other ideas and guilt gradually began to creep in, reminding him of the brief hurt that had crept in and the fact that his brother usually did have Sam's best interests at heart even if he could be a complete ass about it.

Sam forced himself to his feet, ignoring the surge of nausea that leapt into his throat from the movement and padded awkwardly over to his bed, his body refusing to respond to its usual cues that allowed him grace as a hunter. He grabbed his duffel and began stuffing his clothes into it, he was usually a neat packer but the combination of annoyance and the hangover meant that he really didn't give a damn.

Next comes Dean's side of the room and he found Dean's duffel was already half-packed so just stuffed the last oddments in, trying not to crease it too fast but knowing that Dean will likely kick a fuss about his packing no matter what, even if Dean's idea of packing is stuffing everything in and jumping on it 'til it fits. The weapons Sam left 'til last from simple common sense. The alcohol-induced weakness in his limbs had ceased now and his head felt clearer, even if the nausea had him on a five minute warning before he'd need to dash to the bathroom. He picked up the knives from the various stash points in the room (because you can never be sure which wall the ghost will throw you into) and retrieved the guns, tucking them all into the container and then rolling it up and tying it tightly.

After Sam has finished emptying the contents of his stomach into the already disgusting toilet, he stood and headed into the kitchen, washing up his coffee mug and the other cutlery and plates that had accumulated over their brief motel visit. He knew he didn't need to, from the state of the place when the brothers moved in, nobody else bothered.

He'd just placed the last glass in the rack when there was a click of the key in the lock and Dean walked back in. "Ready to go, Sammy?" It's a peace offering Winchester-style.

"I'll load the bags into the car." was Sam's replying apology.

"Nah, I'll get it." Dean accepted Sam's apology.

Ten minutes later they were on the road. Dean had Led Zeppelin cranked to what he considered a reasonable volume and kept his tapping fingers on the wheels to a minimum, "Get some sleep, Sammy." He advised when he saw Sam's swaying movements, "It's a two day drive without stops."

Sam took Dean's advice and curled himself as comfortable as possible against the side of his chest, resting his cheek against the cool glass of the window, letting the purr of the Impala and the calming presence of his brother lure him into sleep.

-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-

Jerry Kierton bore all the trademarks of long years in the marines though gone slightly to seed. His grey-threaded dark hair was longer than the regular buzzcut and he had a slight beer belly built on a solid foundation of muscle. His eyes were still sharp though and Dean could see him assess the boys within two seconds of them stepping into his house and how his poise didn't relax one note from full attention. "Boys," He drawled, "It's good to finally meet ya. You must be Dean, I recognise the moptop." He said to Sam.

"Dean had a moptop?" Sam exclaimed, liking this man already.

Dean scowled, "Did not."

Jerry paused briefly and glanced between the brothers, rapidly realising his mistake, "Jeesh, you got tall." He addressed Sam, "And your brother had a hell of a moptop. Your Dad used to spend hours passing round the latest photos on a boring wait to be deployed. This is Sammy, This is Sammy's first smile, This is Sammy's second smile, This is either Sammy's third smile or wind." Jerry obviously spotted Dean's smug grin as he switched to, "This is Dean, This is Dean getting his first kiss off the girl next door, This is Dean getting his second kiss off the girl next door on the other side, This is Dean getting kicked by his first kiss. This is Dean running naked around the garden because he decided it was too hot for clothes."

"And that's enough of that." Dean interrupted.

"And to think how you rag on me." Sam crowed, "Moptop boy."

"Dude, I was four. Mom used to cut my hair herself with the aid of a lopsided mixing bowl."

It had taken just under two days for the Winchesters to drive to the coast where Jerry lived, swapping over the driving every seven hours though Sam was fairly sure Dean had extended his shifts a little. To their surprise, the veteran marine lived in a terraced, white picketed fence house in the middle of Suburbia, surrounded by gardens containing sandpits and racing bikes.

"I was sorry to hear about your mother," Jerry said, "Only met her the once, John wasn't big on attending the marine formals. She was the most beautiful woman in the room and I told her that. Of course my own date wasn't so pleased with me but frankly she looked like mutton dressed like lamb dressed like a freaking hooker, last time I pick up a girl at a bar."

It was always telling how differently the boys reacted to talk about their mother, even in those few times it happened. Sam leaned forward, eager for any more information. Dean leaned back, watching somewhat resentfully the man who had memories of his mother that he didn't.

Jerry's eyes flicked between the brothers, assessing before adding, "I was sorry to hear about your father too. Damn good man, too good for a fucking traffic accident."

"That's not quite all the information," Dean said, leaning forward a little to show his concession, "But I figured it was a bit much to blurt out over the phone."

Jerry frowned, brows lowering over sea-water blue-green eyes and this time it was him that leaned back, "Oh, what happened?"

"You know about Dad, right? About what we do?" Dean always remained deliberately vague but at Jerry's nod, Sam saw him breathe a sigh of relief, "Demon-possessed truck driver."

"Fuck," Jerry draw out the syllable to three times its length, "That's just.." He ran a hand idly back through salt and pepper hair, "Fuck." He repeated, "You got the son of a bitch?"

"We weren't exactly in the best shape either." Dean admitted and Sam could hear two thousand shades of regret in his brother's voice. If they weren't in front of a marine, he'd likely try for a 'chick-flick moment' but they were and even Sam's desperation to get Dean to Just. Damn. Talk. didn't stretch to public embarrassment. It didn't take Dean long to apply avoidance strategy #1 in the Winchester rule book, "So, about the job?"

Jerry took a moment to assess the few emotions allowed to express themselves in Dean's hazel eyes before, apparently satisfied, he stood and retrieved a folder from on top of a cabinet, "Most of the details I know are in here, I didn't feel safe to fax it over." He handed the folder to Dean who immediately passed it off to Sam who opened it and started leafing through the documents within.

Dean just leaned back, preferring to get the facts straight from the horse's mouth as usual, "You know anyone with a grudge against you that'd like to set you up for a fall?"

Jerry quirked a grin at the line of questioning, "You want a list? I'm not exactly the most popular guy around. My squad usually voted me 'Most likely to find himself in the path of friendly fire' though I never was. Don't exactly fit around here either."

"Yeah," Dean said, glancing towards the curtained window, "Seems a bit suburbia for an ex-soldier."

"Veteran soldier, Semper Fi," Jerry corrected though there wasn't much heat to his voice, "And I got this place cheap. I spend most of my time out on the boats. I have a thriving scuba-diving that provided the base capital for the cruises. Wouldn't want to retire here but it's the least I can do to provide all the fence-peekers with some gossip."

Sam glanced out of the window just in time to see a soccer mom being tugged along by a labrador on a leash and a toddler. She glanced over at Dean's muscle car stretched languidly across the driveway, sighed and carried on walking. Sam let out an amused grin, "Dean's car already has an admirer."

"Damn right," Dean nodded, "Is she hot?"

"Nope, looked a lot like the ex-girlfriend that Jerry described earlier." Sam lied.

Jerry turned towards the window and bit back a laugh, "That's Missy Rayder. You can always tell when she's about from the sound of jaws hitting the ground or, as the old ladies around the corner tend to say, the headboards hitting the wall."

"I think I'd like to meet this girl," Dean said with a white-toothed grin.

"Trust me, you don't," Jerry said, "The only thing louder than what I just mentioned is the sound of running footsteps. She's a little clingy to her lovers and her husband is career military and a little antsy when he comes home." Jerry paused and frowned, "Damn, I've been staying in this place too long."

Dean looked amused and Sam was pleased to see that the tension which had begun to be formed between the two men had been whittled down, "Anyone specific that might want to target your business?"

"There are a couple of marines that I turned down a job here. I let just about everyone but these two were a lot too vicious and there were several nasty stories about their actions out there. They tossed a few generic threats my way but I've no idea how they could have got onto my ship, let alone push a couple of passengers off. I tend to hire marines and you don't get much past those guys. I offered your Dad a job once."

The look on Dean's face when Jerry said that made Sam burst out laughing on the spot, "Dad?" Dean choked on, "Working on a cruise ship full of rich people. What were you thinking?"

Jerry laughed; a deep barrel sound that reminds both boys of their father, "I was thinking it'd be nice to have a good friend around. It's not easy being surrounded by rich people all the time."

"Dad wouldn't have lasted five minutes around a bunch of toffs. You wouldn't have needed a spook to end up with a bunch of them overboard," Dean said, pride resounding in his voice.

Jerry arched his brow for a moment, glancing between the two brothers, "I think maybe we've got your roles the wrong way around. Perhaps we should let Sam be the rich guy and keep you in the back room. You seem a lot like your father."

Sam was about to give his agreement to that plan but Dean just shook his head, "No way. I can play a rich guy, they are allowed to be cruel to other rich people but you make me a barman and I'll be pouring the drinks, for sure, all over the customers." He paused and then added, "Plus Sam has the puppy-dog eyes. You just wait. If he sits the other side of the bar and asks the customers 'How are you feeling?' then they'll be telling him. If this is a human problem, we'll have it all wrapped up before the ship is even clear of the harbour."

Sam used those 'puppy-dog' eyes to glower at his brother, "I still think I could pass better as a rich person. I'm used to the lawyer types from Stanford."

"But I'm a far better liar," Dean replied.

"Are not!" Sam protested.

"Dude, I had you still believing in Santa Claus when you were fourteen despite the fact that at least two people had told you otherwise and you'd seen Dad sneaking into the room at night."

Sam blushed and stared intently at his shoes for a moment, "So I was a bit naïve and it made sense that with all the dark things out there, there'd have to be a few light things to even the balance."

Dean smirked at Jerry, "I yelled at him for two hours straight in order to convince him that I really was angry at him for letting Santa Claus into his room while we were all sleeping. He was crying by the end of it." Dean chuckled to himself and then frowned at the end, "Dad yelled at me for an hour about making Sammy cry for no good reason. Was still worth it."

"I almost miss my brothers when I hear the pair of you talking, almost." Jerry stated, "Anything else you need to know?"

Sam glanced back down to the file he was reading, "Here, You said that no-one actually saw either of the two victims diving off the side. Is that unusual? No-one being on the deck."

"On a real ship? Sure would be. There's always jobs need doing. On a cruise ship, it isn't so unusual. It had been raining lightly all day and half of our passengers who were so keen for a real military experience disappeared inside at the first scattered showers. We have regular patrols up on deck, just in case. Both deaths occurred in between the patrols."

"But both of them were spoken to in the hall." Sam said, fact not question.

"And neither of them sounded suicidal." Jerry agreed with Sam, "They just sounded like themselves."

"Any chance I could speak to who they spoke to before the cruise departs?" Dean asked.

"I?" Sam queried.

"Of course," Dean stated, "You get to go to barman training, boot camp style."

Sam looked up to find twin smirks off his brother and the veteran marine, "You have got to be kidding me?"

Jerry shook his head, even as he scribbled down on paper the names and addresses of the eye-witnesses, "This ain't special treatment, all of my staff go through it, even the marines to make sure we give customers the 'genuine military experience'." Sarcasm was thick in the man's tone, "You got any work experience?"

"Did some work in a college bar," Sam admitted.

Dean blinked at his brother, "You did? You never mentioned that."

"It didn't come up. You still haven't told me how you got that new scar on my arm."

"I told you, gorgeous brunette, bit of a biter." Dean winked.

Sam scowled, "Those are not human bite marks."

"Boys," Jerry interrupted, "Can we save the squabbles for later?" He held out the piece of paper to Dean who stuffed it into a pocket.

"Should we schedule a time?" Dean said sweetly to his brother, "That is a good point. Where on the ship would be a good place for me and Sam to meet without anyone else noticing?"

"I've arranged a room for you close to one of the entrances to the staff corridor. I can get you a key so you can slip in and out. Most of the crew are people that I know so they'll be safe to tell…"

Dean held up a hand, "I'd rather you didn't them. Trusting them is one thing, trusting them not to let something slip out is another."

Jerry stared disbelieving at the older Winchester, "They are marines! Not letting something slip out is one of the first things we get taught."

"I'd still rather you didn't tell them." Dean said, "The chances are whenever we find this thing and take care of it, it's going to be messy and I'd rather we didn't have too much questions about it."

"Fine. I'll have to tell the top members of my team. They are marines so if you two started sneaking around the ship and asking questions and they'd be likely to accuse you."

"Let us know who you'll be telling," Dean said, his voice just one decibel below the full John Winchester command level. "So where on the staff level would be close enough for us to meet?"

Jerry frowned, "I can get you a room fairly close to Dean's. It'll mean you have to share but I can make sure they are good people. You will be able to trust them not to report any clandestine meetings."

"Dean, I'd like to check out any similar incidents in the library," Sam said. "Before I get assigned to barman boot camp. Check around for anything targeted at the military or similar accidents in the vicinity."

Dean nodded his head and stood up, "Thanks for this, Jerry." Dean tapped the folder in his brother's hands, "I'll let you know if we need any more information before we go."

"I should be thanking you," Jerry said as he stood, "Anything you need, let me know."

The brothers walked about the door and Sam spotted his brother peeking around for the soccer mom from earlier and rolled his eyes, "Any thoughts, Dean?" he asked, knowing he was setting himself up.

"About hot soccer moms? Hell yeah. About this case? Not the slightest but I'll tell you one thing," Dean rubbed his hands together, "I love me a mystery."


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer and notes in chapter one**

**A/N: **Not so much a note on the story but I am a Brit therefore I will not get to see episode 1 of season 3 until sometime tomorrow evening. Therefore, while I adore and appreciate all feedback, please DO NOT include any spoilers in it or I'll be very sad and set Sam's puppy eyes on you.

* * *

Dean was Bored. Bored with a capital B, probably a larger than normal O and R too. Sammy was acting like a kid in a candy store with the contents of two box files spread about the table. The contents of the folder Jerry had given them were spread out over the table. Every now and then Sam would pause, chew on his pen and then scribble a load of notes on the pad of paper.

They had agreed to leave visiting the eye-witnesses to Dean seeing as Sam had to get to his training soon and both men lived some way out of town. Dean was beginning to wish they'd just gone anyway. He wasn't cut out for this library rubbish.

Dean stared at the dusty box file that Sam had placed in front of him. He'd only got as far as scribbling 'Clean me' in the dust on the top along with a smiley face. At Sam's waspish look, Dean pushed open the box file, spluttering at the cloud of dust it kicked up. "What are we looking for again?" Dean asked his brother, knowing full well but there was little entertainment in the library except bugging little brothers.

To Sam's credit he just rolled his eyes, "Any series of accidents with one death per outing over multiple outings. Suicides from individuals not known for depressive tendencies or men falling overboard while not in adverse conditions." Sam turned his head back to his own research though Dean was amazed he could see anything through the hair fronds.

Dean pulled the first wodge of paper out. It was yellowed and the ink had faded to near invisibility in parts. It was set out in a grid with ship name, reporting officer, souls lost, bodies recovered and then a number referring to the report on the incident. The form looked printed but all the information was handwritten and near unreadable in part, "Wow, don't recover many bodies, do they? So swimming in the ocean is practically swimming through eau de decomposing bodies."

"The ocean is huge, even if you killed the entire population and dropped them in, you'd likely still be able to swim without coming into contact with water that had touched a body."

"Nonsense," Dean disagreed. "If the entire population was dead, you wouldn't be alive to swim."

At Sam's frustrated eyebrow twist, Dean awarded a point to himself. Dean tugged Sam's pad of paper away from him and started doodling on it.

Sam shot his brother an irritated glance and tugged his pad back, glancing down at the crudely drawn cartoons. "Did you used to pull this shit on Dad?" Sam hissed.

"Of course not," Dean said cheerfully back, enjoying the twitch that he could see beginning in the corner of his brother's eye. "I pulled a whole different variety of shit on Dad."

He could see his brother's chest rise and fall and he took in long deep breaths, calming himself enough to deal with his brother, "Just do the research. I know you are capable of it, why the hell are you kicking us such a fuss?"

"Because this is pointless," Dean said in a sing-song voice. "We aren't going to find out anything about this thing until we are on the ship and we're in the same sort of area as the other two guys died. Half these records are vague to the point of uselessness and there is probably even more where no report was filed at all. If this has happened before, we'll never find it here."

"Then what would you suggest?" Sam said. "Sit around here twiddling our fingers until the ship leaves. That doesn't seem like the best use of our time."

"I was thinking of hitting a few of the bars around here, maybe getting myself some MILF action." Dean rubbed his hands together.

"You are sick, man," Sam protested. "Look, just send over your box file and then go do whatever it is you do when I'm not keeping my eye on you."

"No, I'll help." Dean tugged the box file closer and started pawing through the contents. He glanced towards his brother out of the corner of his eyes, ascertaining that Sam was just getting into the flow of his research and Dean started humming the first bars of Whole Lotta Love by Led Zeppelin. Dean swore he could almost see the blood flow as his little brother's face went from flesh tone to increasing shades of red.

"Shut up, Dean!" Sammy finally snapped, slamming his fist down onto the table. "Just for once, could you act at least ten or twelve of the twenty seven years that you supposedly have?"

"And maybe for once, Sammy, you could accredit me with some of those twenty seven years? Let's see what wonder Sammy the research boy has come up with." Dean grabbed the notepad, "Other than my excellent illustration of Wonder Dean and the werewolf hunt, we have no suspicious deaths, no suspicious deaths, no suspicious deaths and what's this? Oh, no suspicious deaths. That and some serious nasty facts about scurvy."

Sam scowled and Dean recognised the 'I know you are right but I'm sure as hell not going to admit it' expression, "Great. We'll just get on the ship and hope that at some point before the next person dies, we can figure out which of the myriad of water-related spirits and creatures it is, if it even has anything to do with water, the whole water thing could just be coincidence. I know, let's just stick a pin in a board and wherever it lands, that must be it!"

"Excellent use of sarcasm," Dean pretended to applaud, "I thought maybe we could talk to the passengers and find out more. We know some important facts. One, either the people really are throwing themselves off or they are being grabbed quickly and silently. A boat full of marines would notice. Two, if it isn't something grabbing them and it is something luring them then it does a very convincing job. Both of them were spoken to before they launched themselves off and no-one noticed anything off. Three, if it isn't something luring them then what were both men doing up on deck during rainy conditions."

Sam gave a look of grudging respect to his brother, "I suppose you are right. Help me return the box files to the shelves and then we can head back to the motel. I want to look through Dad's journal so we can at least get a short list of likely creatures."

Dean rolled his eyes, "How about research of a different kind?"

Sam tilted his head to one side, "Meaning?"

"Meaning bars," Dean's face broke out into a grin and his exclamation earned him a shush from another nearby library patron, "You are going to start barman training in just under four days and you don't want to be the only one on the slow bus, do you?"

"I did mention college experience, didn't I?" Sam pointed out to his brother, folding the paper back into the box file and closing up the dusty lid.

"I don't think a bunch of geeky student ordering lager and a bunch of different cocktails with dirty names is quite the same as a load of fancy drinks for rich people."

"And the type of bar you got to will be a suitable test?"

"It will be if we try to order every complicated looking drink on the menu."

"So you are planning on getting utterly slaughtered then," Sam said, lifting the box file to stow it back into the shelves behind him, "You need me along to help because?"

"Wrestling unruly drunk people practice," Dean answered, "Come on, little brother. Let's hit the bars."

-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-

The first week of Sam's boot-camp boozing training was living hell. His morning started with him having to charge throughout the boat on a long run lead by a man who made John Winchester look like a fluffy nice bunny rabbit. After that, it was drills. Sam was used to his father's version of drills with dissembling guns but it seemed bizarre to be doing drills with metal shakers and bottles of liqueur.

Introducing himself as Sam Malone got the requisite amount of laughs. He explained that that truly was his name though he wasn't sure how many of the other staff believed him. He wasn't the only person there who was probably running from something that they didn't want to deal with. As promised, Jerry had given both brothers a list of who knew the boys' true identity and then promptly screwed it up within ten minutes by calling out, "Hey, John's Boy."

Hunting always required quick-thinking and apparently so did being a marine as Jerry quickly added, "John Boy. Got that floppy hick look."

Within a few hours, John-Boy became JB and that was the only way that Sam was referred to. The rest of the training followed suit until Sam was having nightmares about being chased by shiny cocktail shakers which were trying to scramble his brains. Sam was fairly sure that the worst bit was the uniforms. The cruises promised the full military experience which meant military uniforms. They didn't really resemble uniforms that the average soldier would be seen dead in. They were baggy green-toned camouflage pants and dark green tank-top. There was an army jacket that resembled one in Dean's collection for colder days and nights.

All in all, Sam was counting the days until Dean joined him on the ship. There were only so many military stories that Sam could listen to, especially when he knew that half of them were couched references to John Winchester that Sam couldn't respond to.

The first sight that Sam had of his brother in two weeks, he barely recognised him. Dean came in with the rest of the passengers, his usually spiked dark blonde hair was smoothed back making him look almost respectable. The passengers, much like the staff, were issued with a uniform though it was nothing like theirs. They were given a very smart version of the dress uniform, khaki but cut in such a way that it looked stylish rather than functional.

Sam barely caught the wink that his brother directed his way as Dean walked past the lines of staff who greeted the newest lot of passengers onto the cruise. His brother tapped his watch and inconspicuously held four fingers against the sleeve of his army jacket. Sam inclined his head in what could look like a casual nod to just about anyone.

The passengers were led into the large state-room while their luggage was carried to their room. Sam was assigned to circulate the room with glasses of champagne, handing one out to everyone. He scrupulously avoided his brother's direction, not wanting to draw anyone's attention this soon. As soon as all passengers were inside, Jerry stepped up to the front of the room and began his welcoming speech.

"Right, you bunch of moronic toe-rags." He drew himself up straight, face already turning the appropriate shade of red, "My name is Jerry Kierton but you will only refer to me as Sir. You will only eat when I say you can eat. You will only drink when I say you can drink." There were a few amused titters from the ladies in the crowd, the male passenger were all trying to stand up as straight as possible and convince themselves this was for real. "If a senior officer tells you to do something, you will do it and you will do it fast. If a junior officer tells you to do something, you will ignore them or report them. I expect you to know the distinction by the end of the day." The rank structure had been organised such that the passengers ranked the guys carrying their luggage, cleaning their rooms and serving their food and drink but then below most of the senior staff. Sam wasn't looking forward to taking orders off a load of rich kids.

"Mornings begin at oh-six-hundred. That is six am for those of you too pathetic to understand. It will begin with laps around the ship. If, and only if, I am satisfied with your work, you will be allowed to eat." Sam could see Dean trying very hard not to laugh and Sam cursed to himself, he knew he should have played the rich guy: Dean would end up blowing the gig in about five minutes if he wasn't careful. "I have a strong complaints procedure. That is that I don't want to hear any complaints. I'd let you go snivelling back to your mothers but there'll be a big expanse of water between you and mommy-dearest and I don't suggest you swim." Jerry paused, surveying the room to make sure he hadn't gone too far with the rich people, "Dismissed. You are on your own time 'til oh-six-hundred."

None of the passengers seemed in any great hurry to go to their rooms and unpack so Sam had to continue to mill around the room, circulating drinks. One of the fellow barman gave Sam a sympathetic wink the third time a middle-aged former-socialite, whose saggy breasts were quite plainly unsupported beneath her tank-top, signalled him over for a refill. Dean, however, seemed to be doing a surprising job of ingratiating himself with his fellow passengers as a spiralling pattern formed in the room with Dean at its epicentre. When Sam passed by with drinks, he could hear his brother talking.

"Well, I had to let the boy go. No matter that he's my uncle's boy, the kid just had no head for business." Sam was amazed that people bought the bullshit Dean span, especially given that Dean's interpretation of a rich accent seemed to be from Connecticut by way of Tennessee and with a couple of stops off at Australia and Taiwan. "My uncle was a little mad. Kicked up a hullabaloo 'bout how he'd lent my daddy the money to start up the company. Well, I told him he was just bitter that he hadn't got the brains in the family. Either way I thought it best to get out of there 'til it all cleared and let Daddy deal with the family so here I am." Dean reached over and took the champagne glass off the tray without even a flick of the eyes to acknowledge Sam, "Helluva speech that guy gave, tell me he doesn't mean any of it. You people been on one of these things before?"

Sam steered away from the group, Dean's chatter fading into the distance, even as he saw more of the passengers migrate to the edges of the group listening to Dean. One of the fellow barman walked alongside Sam for a while and muttered, "That one'll be trouble." He inclined his head towards where Dean was telling another outrageous fabrication, complete with expansive hand gestures that came perilously close to spilling his drink, "Seen the type before. Will last two days into the cruise before they get home sick, sea sick and daddy's money sick."

Sam barely suppressed a laugh that his brother's imitation were even managing to fool the staff and he also had to push down the urge to defend his brother, "You ever had to send passengers home?"

"Not yet though there were a couple last year who tried to use the satellite phone to ring up Daddy to get him to send the helicopter. Fortunately it seemed Daddy had sent the little pissants on the cruise in order to get a break from them so he refused, there is also the fact that his boat doesn't have a helicopter deck. I'm Dan," The other waiter held out the hand not occupied with a drink's tray to shake.

Sam shook and replied, "I'm JB." He preferred the nickname he'd earned to the ludicrous moniker that Dean had stuck him with, "Didn't see you at the training."

"Second season out. I had to go do all that bullshit last year," Dan winced. "Swore to myself that'd be the only time I did this shit too."

"So why you are you back?"

"I need some extra green for college," Dan rubbed his fingers together before smiling graciously at a passenger and holding the tray lower for her to take. Once the woman walked off, Dan's mask slipped off once more, "Rich people tip good and not all of them are bad. Some are just normal people with money, others..." Dan shuddered.

"You heard about the two who killed themselves?"

"Can hardly miss it," Dan replied, "I was working here at the first. Freaking typical of rich people. Got plenty of overpaid pharmaceuticals back home but they have to screw up Jerry's job and kill themselves here." Dan bowed graciously and offered out another drink, "Frankly, I think one of the passengers did it. Rich people are cut-throat." Dan did a quick scan of the room to make sure no-one was eavesdropping, "I'm a bit of a conspiracy nut and rich people are a goldmine."

Sam internally chuckled to himself, trust him to find the conspiracy nut within minutes, "Like what?"

"Okay," Dan tilted around the room, "Woman at eight o'clock, man at twelve o'clock. Boarded separately but quite plainly fucking like bunnies. They were on the last cruise. Both married and not to each other. What they don't know is that her husband and his wife conspired to send them on the cruise so they can have a long consult with their lawyers and be sure to bleed their former-partner dry of every cent in each respective divorce." Dan turned a little, "Then there's the woman at three o'clock. Her husband's company is going bust and she's out there so that she can claim she had nothing to do with the dodgy dealing he is about to do in order to keep his company afloat. Of course, he doesn't know that the reason his company is going under is because she's been insider trading to build herself a nice little nest-egg that, courtesy of an iron-clad pre-nup, she'll be keeping."

Sam decided that Dan was going to be his new best friend. "How do you learn all this?"

"It's easy. All you have to do is lean on the bar and say 'How you doing?' and half of them will spill out whatever is on their mind. After that it's just a case of observation and putting all the pieces together."

In the next half an hour Dan and Sam circulated around the room, Dan filling him in with all the little bits and pieces about the passengers such as the senator who took a strong stand against illegal immigrants despite the fact half of his household staff had no green card or there was the former child model who was a bulimic, depressed, hypochondriac nymphomaniac and that was just her good points.

By the time Sam made it to the room he was sharing with two of the shipping engineers called Sven and Calum and an incredibly camp barman called Kevin, he was exhausted. He wanted to just sink on his bed and sleep but he knew that he had another shift to go to in minutes. Dean had deliberately contracted him on long shifts in order to give Sam as much time as possible to deal with the passengers and find out what's going on.

Sam walked into the cramped bathroom and splashed his face and hands before checking his watch. It was an hour before he was due to meet with Dean. He put on the happy face and walked out of the door. All he needed to do was stand in the kitchen and wash up a load of glasses, the rich people had got through an enormous amount of glasses just in the meeting social.

The kitchen was mostly empty, the preparations for the evening meal hadn't started yet so the time seemed to drag until it was finally time for Sam to go upstairs and meet Dean. Sam's room was as empty as when he had left it an hour ago. Kevin was on shift and Sven and Calum were in the middle of a poker game. Dean walked in about a couple of minutes after Sam.

"Hey little brother," Dean grinned. "Man, it's good to see you. Forget the frigging monster, we should be salting and burning the passengers."

"I got a cheat sheet tour of them by another barman," Sam said, sitting down on the bed to rest his tired feet, "Still, you seemed to be getting on alright with them though I think we need to talk about the accent."

"I thought it made me sound exotic," Dean protested, looking like a kicked puppy. "And anyway, all I needed to do was act like the most reprehensible individual I could imagine and they lapped me up, some of them nearly literally. So, what have you found out so far?"

"Not much." Sam replied reluctantly, "Nothing suspicious has happened. I checked out the place that the victims had jumped off with the EMF but I didn't register a flicker. I'm not sure how long the traces would have remained though, it has been a couple of months since the last cruise. You? Did you speak to the eye-witnesses?"

"Yeah and they were a whole dollop of useless. Just said the same as what Jerry told us. They saw the guys, seemed normal, never would have guessed they'd jump off the boat, yada yada yada," Dean rolled his eyes. "Spoke to a couple of repeat passengers onboard but they were more interested in boasting about their latest conquest on the board room floor that two of their peers who had died. One of them even boasted that their takeover bid would likely go a lot smoother now." Dean looked disgusted, "I told them they'd have to make sure that I didn't get there first." Dean looked like he wanted to punch something so Sam stayed well clear of Dean's fists, "So, what now?"

"Boat should be clearing the harbour in about ten minutes. From there, it is about five days until we get to the approximate area where the other two jumped. I can pick up regular updates from the captain so we'll know exactly when we are in the right area." Sam answered, "Thanks to Dan, I should have an exact list of what each of the passengers is up to and from there, we can work out any non-supernatural possibilities. It sounds like board room politics are a possibility."

"Maybe," Dean said. "But I think there's a big difference between these idiots stating that they'd like to kill someone and actually having the chutzpah to do it. Cut throat in the board room doesn't equate to the actual cutting of throats."

"I guess we need to figure out who was actually a friend with the dead passengers."

"What are the chances that someone would go back on a cruise that killed one of their friends?"

"Given that nearly everyone here is rich and bored, probably not too bad." Sam answered, "I think I can find out from the staff who the dead guys used to hang around with and then I can pass the list onto you and you can find an excuse to talk to them."

"Good plan. So, how was boot camp?" Dean flopped himself down on Kevin's bed, stretching himself out in that boneless fashion that Sam would get severe muscle aches if he even tried.

"Hell," Sam replied, keeping his upright seat on his bed. "There are people here who can make Dad look sweet-tempered."

Dean guffawed, "Now that I have to see. You are doing alright though? I know I kinda sprung the whole barman thing on you."

"I'm doing fine, Dean," Sam rolled his eyes at his brother's mother hen routine, "I'm more worried about how you are doing with your separation from the Impala."

Dean growled, "Don't mention that. I left her in Jerry's garage, poor baby is gonna get all lonely. I left my cell phone in her though so I can at least check up on her." Dean's face brightened as he spoke.

Sam gave his brother a look, "You are aware cars can't answer phones, right?"

"Of course," Dean said, "But she'll know I care."

"I think this trial separation will be good for you," Sam put on his serious lawyer face.

Dean chucked a pillow at his brother's head, "It's not a separation, it's just a brief time of being away from each other."

"Of being separated?" Sam prompted.

"Shut up," Dean said, pushing his lips out to pout. "You are just jealous because you don't have a car to call your own."

"Yeah, that's obviously it." Sam deadpanned.

Dean glanced around, "Nice place. Where are your room mates?"

"Sven and Calum are still on shift."

Dean's eyebrow tilted up towards his hairline, "Sven? You seriously have a room-mate called Sven? Does he speak in a Svedish accent?"

Sam shook his head, "No, he speaks like an American. He just happens to have Swedish ancestry and parents who don't want to give it up. Kevin is serving at the bar."

"Is that the guy who managed to mince in fatigues?" Dean teased. "And he's your room-mate?" Dean waggled his brows.

"For crying out loud, Dean, grow up!" Sam pushed a hand back through his hair and let out a breath, "Suddenly I'm so glad that I don't have to share a room with you."

"You know you miss me already," Dean teased, "I guess I should get going. One of the women intimated that she might try sneaking into my room later and I would hate to miss that."

"You really want to mess around with some rich bitch after everything you said about them?" Sam wrinkled his nose like he could smell a bad odour.

"Hell yeah. They don't talk too much during." Dean winked, "Maybe you should get yourself some action, do the whole hot waiter schtick."

"I share a room with three other people," Sam motioned to the other beds including the one Dean was sprawled across.

"You don't have to take her back to your room," Dean pointed out. "I hear the deck is notably quiet apart from a check-up by the staff every thirty minutes."

"Just get out, Dean," Sam made a shooing gesture towards his brother. "I have another shift starting in about four hours thanks to your fantastic contract negotiation and I'd like to grab a few hours worth of sleep. I think cruises with a twenty-four hour bar should be banned."

"See you later, Sammy," Dean said, peeling himself up from the bed and heading towards the door. "Don't do anything I would."


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimers and notes in chapter one.**

**A/N: **Many thanks as always to my fantabulostic (What, it's a word!) beta TraSan for helping me kick this chapter into shape and for indulging my random babbling about stove metaphors.

* * *

It had been three days and so far all the cruise had done so far was shake Dean's faith in humanity. He now knew nearly every secret that the other passengers had thanks to his own questions and the amazing deductive capabilities of Sam's friend, Dan. The one thing that the passengers hadn't told him was anything about the deceased passengers. Dean had often seen Sam plying his sensitive bartender face on the relatively drunk patrons of the cruise.

It was heading into the small hours of the morning when Dean ambled into the bar, feeling in need of a drink to try and rid his head of the dregs of the perpetual hangover. When he spotted Sam serving at the bar, he was tempted to walk straight out but he knew that would likely raise suspicion so he just make his way over to a nearby stool, "Beer."

"Yes, sir," Sam salutes and Dean suspects half the reason that their father turned down the job, apart from the whole interfering with his vengeance gig, was that it seemed too much of a mockery of the life their dad used to live. A beer was slapped down in front of Dean and the cap flicked off in one precise movement.

There were only a couple of other patrons in the bar at that hour. One occupied a seat two down from Dean, the other sat in the back of the room, stretching out on one of the benches. The man at the bar was nursing a whiskey, the glass curled in a loose grip, the ice long since melted.

Dean lifted the beer and sucked back on it, relaxing a little more as the liquid hit the back of his throat and slid down into his stomach. God knows he needed fortification to deal with these people. Barely had the beer touched his lips than he slapped the bottle down empty on the beer mat, enjoying the pleasant buzz it shot through his nerves.

Sam the barman kept a straight expression as he took the empty bottle and dropped it with a clink into the bin, "Another, sir?" He offered, only the slightest inflexion in his tone showing his disapproval of Dean's drinking. Sammy should know better, one beer wasn't enough to put Dean off his game.

"Yes," Dean said and longed for the simple days of the motel room where he could talk to Sammy as Sammy and not worry about someone opening the door and blowing the whole gig. They had decided to only meet if one of them had information which meant Dean hadn't seen his brother as his brother since that first day of the cruise and it was driving him nuts. Another beer was slapped down in front of him and, with another clink, opened. Dean took a glug from this one but put it down with most of the liquid remaining.

The man at the bar knocked back the last watery dregs of whiskey and slapped the glass down on the bar, "'Nuther one, JB." He said in a tone blurred with alcohol. Dean still had no clue why everyone seemed to refer to Sam as JB and hadn't found a suitable opportunity to ask.

Sam sloshed the whiskey in a generous measure into the man's empty glass and added a couple more bits of ice, crystalline bergs in the amber sea. "You alright, sir?"

The man, Lionel Caddington if Dean got the name right, just looked up him through eyes fogged with too much alcohol and too little sleep, "Don't know why I came on this fucking cruise again." He said, taking the glass and swirling it around and around, seeming entranced by the moment.

"Is something wrong with it, sir?" Sam asked.

Dean rubbed a finger down the perspiration on his beer bottle and did his best to become invisible, taking small sips from the beer but otherwise becoming part of the scenery, something he had never been great at accomplishing.

"Nothing wrong," Lionel shook his head and Dean worried for a moment that the man would topple straight off the bar stool but he managed to keep his balance, "Just not right either. I just thought if I came back, it would all make sense but it's not making sense. Have you seen beauty, boy?"

Sam's eyes dipped down to stare at the bar and Dean wished for a moment that he wasn't there, having a feeling that it was his presence stopping his brother from talking to someone. Ironic seeing as it was Sam who'd been pushing Dean these past few months to open up, to talk, to rip his heart out of his chest and hold it up like a bleeding trophy to show that it could still beat. "I, I think I did. My girlfriend."

Lionel just shook his head, "I'm sure your girlfriend is beautiful but she ain't beauty." The man tossed back the whiskey and slapped it down on the bar once more, "More please, JB."

Sam dutifully poured the whiskey into the glass though Dean noted it was a bit more stingy this time. Obviously he wasn't the only one who had noticed the wobble. "Have you seen beauty?" Sam asked and Dean was proud of how casual his brother's tone was.

"Not me," Lionel stated sadly, looking into the amber liquid as if it held the answer to all his problems, "James though, he saw beauty."

It took all Dean's self-control not to snap his head up. James was the name of the second of the two victims. He saw a similar jolt run through Sam's body and his brother's hand trembled a bit on the lid of the whiskey bottle as he screwed it closed again. "Really? So what does beauty look like?"

"Not what you'd probably think, boy." The man says though Dean estimates he has no more than ten years on Sam, possibly far less as most of the businessmen aboard have that slightly worn look to them. Most of the women shown signs of plastic assistance in youth. "No blonde hair or blue eyes. No big boobs or long legs. No legs at all."

Sam's eyes stole over to Dean for a moment there, only the slightest widening betraying that Sam wasn't quite sure where to go with this conversation. Dean weighed up his options and then scraped his beer bottle across to slide into the seat beside Lionel, slurring his tone to sound more drunk than he was, "Beauty with no legs? You are kidding, mate! Legs are the best bit. Well, maybe the second best." Dean cocked his head to the side in mock-thought, "Okay, close third."

Lionel didn't seem to object to the intrusion and Dean felt relief. The man just swivelled a little to face both Dean and the barman, "You'd be surprised. This one, she never had no legs. James told me all about it, three days before he died." Lionel knocked back his whiskey and glanced to Sam to refill it which Sam did hastily, "Nobody'd believe me if I told them. I'd be retired to the funny farm just like my father was when seeing fairies in the board room got inconvenient but James told me he saw a mermaid."

-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-

Dean paced impatiently in the confines of Sam's small room. Lionel had passed out shortly after his revelation and Sam had signalled to Dean that he had an hour of his shift to run. Dean had left the bar, staggering a little to make it look convincing. He'd gotten to his room and grabbed Dad's journal, scribbling out notes on everything it contained about mermaids. He couldn't risk taking the journal into Sam's room, it'd raise a few too many questions just in case Sam's room-mates walked in, he and Sam had worked out contingency places for that.

That had only taken thirty minutes leaving Dean another thirty to pace within his own room, the need to see his brother and talk never feeling as strong as it did in that moment. Thirty minutes of pacing later, he walked out of his room, nervously scanning the corridor and then slipping soundlessly through the staff door and down that corridor to Sam's room. He pressed his ear to the door and listened, relieved by the lack of noise inside. Dean let himself in and scowled when Sammy wasn't there yet and started pacing.

Twenty minutes later and Sam still wasn't there and Dean was annoyed. Dean was quickly heading beyond annoyed. Sam should know how important the gig is, far more important than the bar job. Nobody will die if Sam left the bar unattended. In fact given the amount Dean's fellow passengers have been swilling down, maybe even a few would live due to less liver failure.

When Sam walked in the door ten minutes later, Dean turned on him, "Where the hell have you been?"

"Where do you think I've been?" Sam instantly shifted to pissed off, shrugging out of his bar clothes and tossing them onto the bed. "The bar, serving people, the lovely job you got me."

"Does the bar really seem more important than the job?" Dean had always reserved certain words which have a meaning beyond the usual. Work, Job: these refer to hunting and never to the kind of menial labour that everyone else does.

"Yes," Sam hissed, lying down stretched out on his bed, hands tucked behind your head. "We've hardly solved the case because a drunk guy says his dead friend saw a mermaid. It's still important that we keep up the pretence."

"Fine," Dean conceded. "But you could have got someone to cover for you. I've been waiting for ages."

Sam rolled his eyes, "It must have been hard on you. You find anything in Dad's journal?"

Dean unrolled the sheets of paper from his pocket and held them out to his brother, "There's a bit about mermaids though it doesn't sound like Dad ever actually encountered one. The usual stuff about tail of a fish and the upper body of a women."

Sam scanned over the sheets of Dean's untidy scribble and frowned, "There's rumours of mermaids drowning sailors but these men weren't sailors."

"Well, I doubt when the legends were written there were many people on the sea that weren't sailors so they hardly needed to make the distinction," Dean pointed out. "I think the time frame is important. Three days from the mermaid sighting until she killed him. We need to find out if the first victim, Alan, saw the mermaid too."

"I don't think going around asking people is likely to get results," Sam said.

Dean shot his brother an annoyed look, "I know that! Have you figured out who were friends with Alan? Maybe I can persuade Jerry to schedule a screening of The Little Mermaid in the theatre."

Sam snorted, "Yeah, 'cos I'm sure some rich guy will go in and see that and come out saying 'You know, Alan said he saw a mermaid once, three days before he died'"

"You got a better suggestion, boy genius?" Dean asked, "I don't think we can get the whole ship as drunk as ol' Lionel was without being responsible for the financial collapse of America in twenty years due to chronic liver failure."

"We can do without the hyperbole, Dean."

"I'm not hyper-anything," Dean retorted. "The only problem is how our pissed off Ariel got the men into the water in the first place."

"You rag on me for Titanic and now you are making Little Mermaid references?"

"Dude, for a cartoon, she was hot! We're talking Jessica Rabbit leagues. Though I never quite figured out how the half-fish thing would work." Dean grinned from ear to ear.

"Now I remember why I stopped watching Disney movies with you when we were kids," Sam drolly stated. "If James did see a mermaid three days before he died and he died on the eighth day on the cruise then someone is going to see a mermaid any day now and we need to find out who it is."

"Oh great, you laugh at my plan for getting someone to tell us if Alan saw a mermaid and now you want me to go around asking the passengers if they've seen a mermaid."

"Not ask," Sam said. "Just watch out for anyone who looks a little buggy, looks like they saw something that they didn't believe they'd ever see."

"Do you reckon you can get Lionel drunk again and dig for a bit more info?" Dean asked. "Without getting him so paralytic that he passes out just when it gets interesting this time."

Sam glared at Dean, "That's hardly my fault. I have to obey the passenger's orders, even if the passenger keeps ordering more whiskey. It's going to be difficult to get him on his own too, the bar is rarely that quiet except in the small hours and I haven't seen Lionel out that often."

"Guess I'll have to talk to Jerry to arrange you a few more small hour shifts," Dean said a little smugly. "Actually you should probably talk to Jerry. See if you can use his satellite phone to connect your laptop up to the net and find out anything about mermaids that you can. Meet here again tomorrow night?" The sound of footsteps, still distant, coming along the corridor brought some urgency to the conclusion and at Sam's nod, Dean slipped out of the door and slinked back towards his room.

-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-

The second night revealed as little as the first. Sam had been unable to corner Lionel to get more gossip. Dean's attempts to prod his shipmates about mermaids proved utterly futile and Dean was half-tempted to resort to screening The Little Mermaid as a desperation strategy. The worst bit of the conversation had been that Sam had seemed incredibly pissy. Dean put it down to sleep deprivation, his little brother had dark circles beneath his eyes.

Right now Dean was pacing the corridor, tempted to head upstairs despite the lashing sea spray blowing across the deck, just in an attempt to avoid the attention of a certain beyond-her-prime socialite. The woman was only twenty nine but repeated plastic surgery gave her an offputting resemblance to Barbie, a connection only exacerbated by the excessive amount of silver-blue eyeshadow she wore.

Dean had been tempted to hook up with her at the start of the cruise but after a mind-numbing conversation about her seventy year old husband who was about to kick it leaving her with a small fortune and the fact that the woman's hand kept creeping up Dean's thigh he had been doing his best to steer clear. Something that had been surprisingly difficult even given Dean's aptitude for subterfuge.

Dean caught a flash of over-primped white blonde hair and turned on his heel, heading towards the steps that led up to the deck. Salty air was the enemy of hair everywhere so he hoped that it would be enough to deter the woman. Once up on deck, he sucked in deep breaths of the salty air and listened cautiously for the sound of following footsteps. When there were none, he felt safe to leave his escape route and walk across the deck.

There were a couple of Jerry's staff up on deck, neither of which knew Dean and Sam's secret so they just saluted as if to an ordinary passenger and continued their quiet conversation. It felt good to stretch his legs beyond the confines of the carpeted hallways so Dean set off a brisk pace across the deck, shiny dress shoes clanking against the metal deck.

It still took too short a time to reach the sturdy railing that sectioned off the edge of the deck. Dean leaned against the railing, watching the white-topped surf of the ocean beneath him. He could feel the eyes of the marines watching him and wanted to assure them that he wasn't about to take a header off the back of the boat. When Dean was a kid, his Dad had promised to take him onto one of the navy vessels when he was old enough but then his dad had left the marines in order to be around more for Dean and Sammy who was just a bump in their mother's stomach at the time. Dad had still promised that he'd contact one of his old navy friends and Dean would get to look around a boat. Then November the second came around and Dean never asked again.

Dean had thought at that age that he'd grow up and be a marine just like his daddy but these days Dean wasn't so sure he ever could have been a marine. The idea of being confined on a boat or a plane waiting to be deployed, unable to just get in the car and put pedal to the metal seemed to be a pretty close approximation of hell. Dean had only been on this boat about four days and he was already going a little stir-crazy. His company on the boat certainly didn't help.

Dean glanced down towards the water once more, looking out towards the horizon, the vast stretch of water making his own place seem that little bit less confined. The sun was beginning to sink, the fiery orange glow cast out across the vast, giving everything a reddish hue. Dean lowered his eyes to the water being broken up by the boat and that was when he saw the mermaid.

In Dean's limited experience, mermaids were usually depicted according to three basic rules: they had long, flowing hair, usually red or blonde. They had medium to large breasts usually concealed beneath sea shells. They were always beautiful. Of those three, only the last was true about this mermaid. Dean could understand why James referred to it as beauty.

It was a disturbing ethereal beauty rather than the conventional definition. To call her half-woman, half-fish was also a misnomer. It was more like she was entirely a fish with some humanoid attributes. She had a torso, arms and a head but rather than skin, they were pebbled with glistening scales, a slightly paler colour than her periwinkle blue tail. Her arms were elongated and slender, delicate looking fins on either side tapering down towards her webbed hands. Where hair would be on a human, it just looked like someone had cut a bit of paua shell and placed it onto her skull, iridescent colours glimmering in the sun.

She opened her mouth and Dean wasn't sure whether he should try to plug his ears but this was no siren song. It sounded like the tape of whale song that Dean had caught Sammy listening to once. Dean didn't so much hear it as it reverberated and echoed off the bones of his body before settling in the hollow of his stomach. She dipped belong the water briefly, emerging a little bit further out that she had before making the deep noise again, her eyes meeting Dean's.

She dipped below the water once more and this time when she emerged, she didn't speak again. Instead she just watched Dean with dark silver eyes until she held her position in the water and the ship carried Dean further away until he could just make out an azure speck that didn't quite blend in with the water. There was a final splash, a dot of white foam marking where she had been, and the mermaid was gone.

Dean gripped the rail a little tighter, anchoring himself against the solidity of reality just in case, feeling the salt spray cool against his face. Finally he turned and headed back down into the ship, not even bothering to check to see if the socialite was trailing him. He headed into the staff corridor and rucked up the loose piece of carpet outside Sam's door, a signal to meet that evening, before heading back into his own room and changing out of his salt-worn uniform into something clean.

After a moment, he got up and heading back down the corridor, smoothing down the carpet once more, there was no reason to worry Sammy yet. After all, they had three days.


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer and notes in chapter one.**

**A/N: **This chapter nearly ended up being late because Paper Mario is attempting to eat my brain. I swear I thought 'I'll play for 20 minutes then I'll post' One hour later….

Thanks, as usual, to my fabulous beta, TraSan, who takes time out of her busy work and flame-retarded duck experiments in order to cast a wise eye over my prose.

Now if I could just stop trying to get my word document to flip 3-d…

* * *

There was something wrong with Sam's brother. Admittedly there had been something wrong with Dean ever since he'd woken up in hospital floundering like a fish and choking around the tube down his throat. Sam had adjusted to the level of wrongness, got used to the fact his brother's jokes always seemed that bit forced and his smile fake. Now Dean had gone and changed on him again though, plastering on smiles even more plastic than before and never quite meeting Sam's eyes.

At that moment in time, the brothers were sat in the room Sam shared, debating over what they had found out from their last meeting, two nights before. Or rather, Sam was sharing the information and Dean was making the occasional reticent 'uh-huh' or 'hmm' or sometimes as much as 'That sounds about right'.

At first Sam worked on the assumption that the people on the ship were getting to Dean but his hypothesis just didn't stand up against the dramatic change between the last time they'd spoken and today. Sam met his brother's eyes once more—a test—and noted as Dean held the contact for a second and then looked away, obviously trying to make it natural and failing miserably.

That led Sam to just one conclusion: Dean was hiding something…again. The obvious thing to be hiding was something about the hunt as there was hardly anything else going on—Dean was more likely to boast about some hook-up with the passenger than be abashed about it. The only reason for Dean to hide something about a hunt from Sam was if he knew it was something that would upset or anger Sam, possibly both, and of all the things Sam could think of, there just one inevitable conclusion.

Sam let out a sigh of breath and caught his brother's gaze once more, "So, when did you see the mermaid?"

"What?" Dean said, a little too late and the intonation of his voice was shocked rather than confused. "What are you talking about?"

Sam knew it wasn't going to be that easy. "When did you," Sam pointed to his brother, "See," Sam made glasses movements around his eyes, "The mermaid?" Sam tried to make splashing motions but he felt it looked more like demented seal motions.

"I," Dean pointed to himself. "Have no idea," He tapped his temple and made squirly motions, "what you," He pointed to Sam. "Are talking about." He made flappy movements to mimic a mouth talking.

Sam just pinned his brother with a look, "Odd how I don't believe you."

"Don't pin your trust issues on me," Dean quipped back.

"When did you see the mermaid?" Sam repeated.

"You know, that whole repeating a question incessantly until someone breaks is something you are supposed to grow out of after junior school."

Sam noticed Dean not explicitly denying his question, the same way he had stated earlier that 'no-one he'd spoken to had seen the mermaid' which made Sam sure he was onto a winner, "When did you see the mermaid?"

Dean's eyeballs went up to the left, a sure sign that he was trying to think up a plausible lie or half truth, "Disney channel, twenty years ago. You?"

Sam gritted his teeth, "When did you see the fucking mermaid?"

"Two days ago," Dean finally admitted and Sam realised there had been a part of him that was hoping he'd got it wrong because it felt like someone just smacked him in the stomach with a sledgehammer.

"Two days ago," Sam repeated, sounding out the words to himself as if trying to figure out how three such simple words could be so devastating. "Shit."

"It's not that bad, Sammy," Dean attempted to reassure his brother, "I mean, I'm not exactly likely to dive head-first into the ocean just 'cos a mermaid tells me too."

"Just like you wouldn't dive head-first into a snow bank because an old Irishman told you to." Sam would have liked nothing more in that moment than to agree but his memory strayed back to a small Irish village and that's when Dean wasn't trying to deal with his father's death.

Dean scowled, "That was hardly my fault. This is a different situation."

Sam said nothing and let the silence speak for him, stretching out.

"Shit," Dean finally concurred with his brother's assessment. "We've still got a day."

"We think we have a day," Sam heard his own voice, harsh and grating, as he turned furious to face his brother. "We still have no idea whether Alan saw the mermaid and if he did, how long before then did he die? We have no clue why this thing is even showing itself before it kills."

"She seemed to be trying to tell me something." Dean admitted, his reluctance clear in his voice.

"She spoke to you?" Sam sounded startled.

"Not really, she made noises. It sounded like that freaky whale song crap you listen to."

"I listened to it once," Sam argued and quickly realised that was just another of the patented Dean Winchester distraction techniques. "So did the music fill you with any sort of desire to lob yourself off the back of the boat?" Sam asked.

Dean shook his head, "Not in the slightest. It wasn't that pleasant but hardly bad enough to bring about suicidal tendencies. Maybe the men who died were just really sensitive."

"Not from what Dan said. Hard-ass bastards by the sounds of it but then that seems to describe most of the passengers when it comes to the business floor."

"Maybe she wasn't showing herself to me because she was going to kill me. Maybe she just realised I was a hunter and wanted to warn me off." Dean suggested.

Sam shook his head, "That makes no sense. How would she know you were a hunter just from seeing you up on the ship rail?" Sam thought about it some more, "It'd also be an unsound tactic to let a hunter know what they are up against, especially as I've never met a hunter who'd just give up."

"The things we hunt aren't exactly known for their smarts. Well, apart from the Wendigo but that thing is just a freak."

"It's still too much of a coincidence. James saw the mermaid first too." Sam thrummed his fingers on the metal post of his bed.

"This could be a good thing." Dean ventured and Sam felt his eyebrow shoot up into his hairline. Dean didn't give him a chance to interrupt though as he kept talking, "This way we don't need to chase around the hundred or so passengers on board to figure out which one of them might be taking amateur swimming lessons sometime soon."

Sam hissed in irritation, "Yeah, instead it's you that is going to be making a bid to raid Davey Jones' locker. Forgive me for not seeing that as a drastic improvement."

"You'd rather find out who the intended victim is when they are already blue and cold?" Dean pointed out, "Usually it takes two or three victims before we can track down what the monster of the week is. We only get one shot at this or Jerry'll have to go out of business and the mermaid will lurk around for the next group foolish enough to include this area on their shipping route. What happens if the mermaid gets entrepreneurial like that fucking plane spirit and starts just sinking the whole damn boat?" Dean's voice got angrier and louder as he spoke and Sam waited in silence for moments after he finished to make sure there were no footsteps heading their way.

"We just lost Dad. Is it so shocking that I don't want to lose you too?" Sam pled.

"You aren't going to lose me," Dean bashed his hand down on the bed frame then winced and rubbed at his hand. "Come on, all we need to do is figure out why Ariel got huffy in her old age, figure out a way to kill her and then lay back and enjoy the rest of the cruise."

"Fine, but I am not letting you out of my sight from now on." Sam said in his most determined voice, "I'll sleep in your room from now on so you can't pull the old sleep-walking trick."

Dean blinked, "Don't you think that might raise a few eyebrows?"

Sam shrugged, "From the sounds of it, one of my room-mates has already had at least two hook-ups among the male passengers so it's not that unusual."

Dean squidged up his face in an expression of distaste, "But still, I'm kinda relying on my flirting skills here to get information and that might cause problems if the ladies think I bat for the other team."

"I'm not suggesting we got around announcing it," Sam pointed out. "Unless you've been inviting women back to your room every night."

"From the shrews aboard?" Dean scoffed. "Not a chance. Half of them slut it about so much among the rich and famous that I could pick up an ABC of STDs."

"Nice, Dean." Sam shook his head at his brother, "So there'll be no problem."

"Apart from the fact there's only one bed in my room."

"It's not like it'd be the first time we've shared a bed."

"You might not have noticed but you sprouted up a few dozen inches since we were kids and I really don't fancy being woken up by bony elbows sticking into my side."

"I do not have bony elbows," Sam said indignantly, "And if I do, you'll just have to put up with them."

"The trials of being an older brother," Dean stated with a melodramatic sigh.

-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-

Dean paused somewhat nervously at the front door to his suite, checking the hallways to make sure no other passengers were around including his platinum-haired stalker. Once the coast was clear, he motioned his brother through. It always amazed him that Sam managed to ever be stealthy given his lanky frame and the clod-hopping large feet. Dean cracked open the door, took a deep breath and went inside.

He heard Sam's exclamation almost as soon as they crossed the threshold of the place and felt a cuff on the back of his head, not quite hard enough to make him wince but enough to make a point. "This is your room?" Sam questioned in amazement.

"Uh, kinda, yeah. I had to look the part of a rich guy." Dean said, scuffing his feet in an abashed manner on the luxury thick-pile carpet.

"You have paintings up your wall," Sam says in a tone composed of equal parts awe and envy. "Real oil paintings and," Dean sees his brother's eyes scan the rest of the room, "You have a fucking piano?"

Dean coughs into his hand and makes a half-shrug, "Yeah. Had a go on it earlier. Turns out I suck at playing the piano."

"I've been sharing a room with snoring Sven, coughing Calum and Kamp as hell Kevin and you had a fucking piano?" Dean was beginning to worry that his brother was a little fixated on the piano.

"It's just part of the act, Sammy." Dean attempted to pacify his brother, "To be rich enough to act so gauche around them, I had to pretend to be the richest of them all." Dean hoped to derail his brother's rant for a moment by using an uncharacteristic word like gauche.

From the way that Sam was staring like a kid in a candy store around the room, Dean was fairly sure his ploy wasn't working. Sam dropped the small carrier of clothes that he'd hastily packed in the centre of the room and started walking around, eyes flickering like a startled fawn to each new extravagance he found. Dean was dreading showing Sam the bedroom.

Finally Sam settled a little and just returned to his dropped back and shook his head, "Next time, I get to be the passenger."

"Sure, Sammy," Dean hastily agreed. "Next time we get a free ride on a luxury cruise, you get to be the passenger." Dean remembered one of his father's lectures about inappropriate times for sarcasm when his brother turned the kicked puppy glare on him.

Sam scooped up his incredibly meagre looking carrier again and shrugged at his brother, "I suppose I should dump this in the bedroom."

Dean quickly moved to place himself between his brother and the bedroom, "No rush. Don't you have a shift starting soon?"

Sam's eyes narrowed and he walked at a steady pace towards his brother, ignoring Dean's attempt to block the door and just using those bony elbows to full effect in the edges of Dean's side to get past and into the bedroom, "Holy fucking crap," came Sam's exclamation.

Dean let out a heart-felt sigh and followed his brother into the room. He wasn't quite sure what had prompted the exclamation whether it was the queen-sized bed pressed against the wall and made up with silk sheets, it could have been the sheet water feature that occupied the opposite wall (which had the pesky side effect of making Dean wake up in the middle of the night needing to pee), it could even have been the well-stocked mini-bar that took up a corner of the room, oak panelling giving the impression of a well-to-do New York wine bar. Frankly it could even have been the large oriental rug that spread out across the floor. "It's not bad." Dean said.

"You suck," Sam stated. "You royally and utterly suck."

"Hey, I'm the one on a death sentence here," Dean said and instantly regretted it as Sam's kicked puppy look migrated to the tortured and damp and oh so sad puppy look, "Right, inappropriate times for humour. We can probably push a couple of the chairs in the lounge together and I'll sleep on that and you can have the bed."

Sam shook his head, "Not a chance. I'm going to make sure that the only way you get out of this room is to clamber over me to be sure you'll wake me up. I'm not taking any chances this time."

Dean got a sudden flash of just how much hell Sam was going to make his life over the next few days. Sam had oft accused Dean of being over-protective when they were kids and Dean would be the first to admit, to anyone but Sam, that he was incredibly protective of his little brother. Sam however could be a mother-hen, fussing and clucking and pecking over everything to be sure everything was alright. "Come on, Sammy, you know I always sleep between you and the door." It was the previously unspoken Winchester rule. Their dad had always slept between Dean and the door and Dean slept between Sammy and the door.

"Not this time," Sam said. Sam twisted his arm and glanced at his watch. "My shift starts in about ten minutes. You should head to the bar and I expect to see you in there drinking until I get off shift, no wandering off."

"Of all the times you had to pick to drag me **into** a bar," Dean grumped.

-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-

Despite his grumping, when Sam's shift started, Dean meandered into the bar and plopped himself down at one of the tables, quickly acquiring a crowd of people eager to natter about what little was occurring in their heads. Screw the luxury room, Sam owed him for this. He made sure to keep himself in Sam's line of sight no matter how busy the bar became. The last thing he needed was Sam having some girly freak-out and blowing the whole gig.

Dean was still sure Sam was going a little over the top about this. Yes, Dean had seen a mermaid but then so had a lot of people in the past and none of them were dead else where had the stories come from? There was nothing to say that Dean had even seen the same mermaid as the other two men. After all, mermaids and mermen were supposed to live in big sea-shell formed communities under the sea so there must be plenty of them around. Dean paused at that thought, Disney had obviously corrupted his brain.

The biggest problem with being seated out on the open, apart from the mind-numbingly dull conversation, was there was no opportunity to covertly read Dad's journal. Dean wanted to cross-check the facts and see if there was any reference to mermaids which remotely matched the image he had seen instead of the idealised busty version. Instead Dean had to discuss stocks and listen to the women endlessly try to couch an invitation in polite terms. There was a reason that Dean adored the women who frequently diners and bars and that was because they were open and unashamed of who they were unlike these cut-glass bitches who hid beneath posh manners and exquisite clothing.

As Dean knocked back his fifth, or maybe sixth, possibly seventh whiskey, Dean decided it would be adequate revenge on Sam if his brother had to carry his paralytic form back to his room, not to mention a good excuse for the bartender to be in Dean's room. The more Dean thought about it, the better idea it seemed: the fact that his confidence in the idea had a direct positive correlation with the amount of whiskey consumed seemed of little matter. Around the eighth (give or take four) whiskey, Dean discovered that the people around him were in fact incredibly fascinating and wonderful and he loved them all. It was about this time that the barman, who looked a little familiar in that floppy haired way, tapped him on the shoulder and suggested he may want to retire to his room.

Dean pointed out and into the barman that he was absolutely positively fine and this wonderful lady was just telling him about her corgi collection. Did he know that the Queen of England kept corgis? Apparently he did which was good, he seemed like a smart person. All people with long hair were smart if they were men. If you were female, you had to have short hair then you were either very, very smart or a lesbian or possibly both. There were, according to Nathaniel Edenridge, a lot of very smart lesbians except that they didn't find Nate hot which was obviously very stupid.

The barman seemed to be a bit annoyed at him which was odd because didn't barman like people drinking? It seemed a little silly to be a barman and then go and object to people drinking. Dean pointed this out to the barman but he didn't seem amused. Instead he just lifted Dean up and began to manhandle him towards the exit.

Around five footsteps away from his room, Dean discovered that the motion of the boat was not the best thing on a roiling head and he dashed the last distance under his own steam, clattering open the door and diving towards the (marble-bedecked) bathroom and set about trying to redecorate the ivory, pristine toilet with the contents of his stomach. The barman hovered over him, alternating between looking worried and looking pissed off.

When Dean was finally sure that there was nothing left in his stomach that could come up, the barman levered him up and helped him into the bed, tugging off the vomit-splattered clothes until Dean was just in his boxers and dumped the clothes in a (silk-screen) laundry basket that sat in the corner of the room. When the barman got into bed, perched on the corner, back to Dean, Dean was tempted to point out this was very forward and Dean didn't swing that way. He was just about to point that out when blessed unconscious gripped his mind and pulled him down into sleep.

-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-

Dean was never, ever, ever drinking again. Never. Never ever. Ever. At all. Ever. He'd woken in the middle of the night thanks to that fucking water sheet and had had to scramble over Sam's prone form to make it to the bathroom in time to empty that last shred of stomach lining that hadn't already made its way out. His head was pounding like there was the entirety of Jamaica stuffed in there having a steel drum contest.

Sam had woken at Dean's movement and now stood in the bathroom doorway, watching somewhat impassively as Dean paid penance to the porcelain god. Just when Dean thought it was over and attempted to raise himself dizzily up to his feet, he found that it wasn't and had to flop back to his knees in order to dry heave, retching until a stream of yellow bile was all that got deposited into the toilet.

Dean's throat felt like someone had gotten a handful of sandpaper and scraped it to red raw. His eyes felt gritty and even the mild light cast from the doorway of the lounge into the bathroom was enough to stab needles into his brain. Even when the dry heaving stopped, he clung to the toilet, willing himself to fall unconscious just to put an end to his misery.

He heard the sound of running water and then there was a wet flannel pressed to his face and Sam's face looking in his view, gigantor hands wiping the flannel across Dean's face, wiping off the traces of sick left behind. Dean gave his brother a weak smile and sagged against the toilet. Soon the muscle tremors that always hit after being sick came and Dean felt his grip on the toilet loosen and he tottered backwards.

Before he could fall, his brother's hands were there, guiding him gently backwards until he was leant with his back against his brother's chest, trying to still the shudders that ran through him. Sam's hands brushed Dean's short hair back from his face and ran that flannel over Dean's cold-sweat damp skin once more bringing brief, blessed relief.

"S-Sammy," Dean croaked out, trying to work some saliva into his dry, stomach acid-burnt mouth.

"Shush, Dean." Sam's voice was soft and quiet, "We'll talk about this tomorrow." Sam's voice sounded like he was trying to be annoyed but couldn't quite manage it. "You feel up to moving back to bed?"

Dean shook his head and quickly regretted it as pain stabbed into his head once more and he had to lurch back forward to the toilet, chest and stomach heaving up nothing. He felt Sam's hand rubbing soothing circles on his back and felt a little guilty for the way he'd wound up his brother during his own hangover at the creepy doll hotel. The thought of those creepy dolls was enough to make Dean's stomach lurch once more, even if nothing dribbled out of his mouth but spit.

By the time Dean had finished, he felt lamb-weak with his wrenched stomach just one big ball of ow. Sam ended up carrying him back to the bed and tucking him under the covers like he was five years old. Sam proved to have a practical side as he placed a basin close to Dean so he wouldn't need to lurch out to the bathroom again the next time his stomach rebelled. The glass of water on the bedside made Dean queasy just thinking about it but Sam held it up to his mouth until he took slow sips which thankfully stayed down for that moment.

When morning came as evidence by the increasing noise of footsteps going up and down the hall, he heard Sam lean over him, "Dean." He said in a voice barely above a whisper, "I've got to get onto my shift. I'll lock the door so just stay in here. I'll try and get some time to check in you, okay?"

Dean had been worrying if he could possibly feel worse but Sam's ever-so-kind words were just enough to plunge him over into the abyss. He mumbled something as an acknowledgment and tried to sink into the far too soft pillows and blessed oblivion once more. He woke up a few more times during the day, twice to relieve his bladder and once to relieve his stomach of the small amount of water he'd got down. Dean was beginning to think that this hangover might rival the great hangover of 2001, the day after Sam had walked out of the door and out on his family to live the all American dream.

There was a few hesitant taps on the room door during the day and the piping voice of some woman or other calling Mr Edenridge to make sure he was alright after he was 'taken ill' last night. Dean ignored them all, fairly sure his unsteady legs wouldn't have made it from the bed across the gaping expanse of space to his room door anyway.

Sam returned just as the bell for dinner was rung and Dean felt his stomach cramp into an impossible knot just at the mere thought of food that flittered across his mind. Sam sunk into the comfy chair opposite the bed and perched his feet on the end of the bed, "How are you feeling?" He asked in a normally pitched voice.

Dean let out a pained groan as a response, "Never ever drinking again."

Sam chuckled, "You know, you are quite the sensation according to the in crowd. Apparently Nate, or Natey as he likes to be called, is witty and urbane and oh so charming. I heard some women are already ordering their lawyers to draw up the pre-nup."

"You trying to make me spew what's left in my stomach, Sammy?" Dean croaked, rolling over to grip the basin even though nothing was left in to come out.

"I'm a little curious about what last night was about," Sam said in that ever so casual voice that Dean knew was dangerous. "At first, I thought you were just trying to piss me off for committing the number one Winchester sin: actually worrying about a family member but I think that was a little showy even for you." Sam leaned back, the chair creaking a little under his weight.

"If this is going to be a chick-flick moment, can you let me know so I can pass out again?"

"That depends," And Sam's tone was dangerous now, that particular blend of hurt and anger and disappointment that only Sammy could manage, "Does figuring out that my brother would far rather get absolutely slaughtered and flirt with a bunch of social bitches rather than actually talk to me about what's on his mind count as a chick-flick moment?"

"Yes," Dean answered, attempting to bury his head down under the fluffy cloud of the pillow to make the rest of the world go away. He felt the pillow meanly tugged away and Sam's hand flip him onto his back. Dean stared up at his brother, squinting his eyes against the light, "Come on, Sammy. Can't we just talk about this in the morning? This hangover is killing me."

Dean flinched at the words as soon as he said them, watching Sam recoil. "Fine, Dean." Sam returned to his chair, propping his feet back onto the bed, "But you better believe that we'll talk about this tomorrow."

Dean tugged another pillow over his head and sank back into sleep.


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimers and notes are in chapter one**

**A/N: **Should probably note ahead of time that, despite some of the references in this chapter, this is not a Wincest fic. Dean's just a little loopy.

This is the chapter I'm sure some of you have been waiting for. Yep, the one where Dean and Sam easily kill the mermaid without any danger or mortal peril to either on the boys… Yeah, not fooling you, am I?

Thanks as always to my wonderful beta, TraSan, who is very, very busy at work at the moment but still manages to find the time to give my fic a look over, not to mention writing wonderful fics of her own!

* * *

When Dean woke up again, it was to the sound of music. At first he assumed that there was some kind of ball going on and the orchestra somehow filtered up here but the music was like nothing he'd ever heard before. He strained his ears to catch more of the sound and soon he began to recognise snippets of it. The low bass thrum of the Impala's engine formed a base note, constant and ever present as his heart beat which made the staccato rhythm. Even his lingering headache didn't seem so much a pain as an essential part of the melody.

He levered himself lightly up in the bed, the cramp in his stomach adding its own delicate solo to the melody, so sweet to his ears. He glanced to his side where Sammy lay perched so close to the edge of the bed that any strong movements of Dean's would likely roll him off onto the floor. The susurrus of Sam's sleeping breath occupied the song for a moment, a reassuring gentle sound that gave way to the crescendo of pain as Dean tried to move once more.

Dean wanted to lie there and watch his brother sleep for eternity. The shift of the blankets as Sam shifted a little uneasily, the quiet mutters in his sleep and the pop of his lips when he drew in a breath. All of them twirled together in his mind forming a kind of blanketing lullaby that tried to draw Dean back into the gentleness of sleep. The main song persisted even over the melody of Sammy. It wasn't a song about Dean's life, it was a song of Dean's life from the crackle of flames that had signalled the end of normalcy to the guttural pop and squish of the first time a bullet from Dean's gun had hit a living (undead) thing and torn into it. It was his father's gruff voice, whiskey rough, imparting advice in one of the post-hunt bars they'd found and it was grating cry of little Sammy on the nights when their father was out and Dean wanted to curl up in a ball himself.

The sleeping bulk of Sam was an obstacle to be overcome. 'Can't go over it,' A children's rhyme and skipping footsteps segued effortlessly into the harmony, 'Can't go under it, have to go through it.' But there was no going through Sam, he was solid and real, no fading wraith like their parents, hovering on the edges of Dean's memory, just waiting to steal away and leave him alone. Dean waited for his brother to restlessly stir once more and pressed down on the mattress close to the small of Sam's back. Sam let out a snort, pizzicato, and rolled onto his back, one giant arm flailing around to slap onto the bed. The way was clear.

Dean stole across Sam's sleeping body, aware of every breath of air as it formed a haunting chorus in his mind along with all the breaths that Dean had seen stall and stop. All the times he had been a moment too late, all the last words that Dean would never relay to their remaining family and finally in the soprano range were the dying screams, the imploring cries for mercy to a monster that never knew the meaning. It called Dean on, it waited for him.

Dean's footsteps were barely audible against the velvet soft of the carpet but Dean found himself matching the tempo of the music surrounding him anyway. He knew walking outside in his boxers just wouldn't do. He needed to get up to the deck and people would surely comment on him. He glanced towards the closet and pulled open the doors, only the tiniest whine of the hinges giving any auditory clue to what he was doing. He pulled on a pair of the standard-issue dark green trousers, the swish of the fabric against skin like a delicate hissing counterpoint. The shirt was fastened with equal quiet care, Dean not wanting to disturb the song that called him onwards.

He left the boots off. Bare feet could be dismissed as an eccentricity and he knew that booted footsteps would be too loud and might wake Sammy and Dean needed Sammy's sleeping breath or else the music would be ruined. He fixed the sound in his mind as he headed towards the door and centimetre by centimetre he opened it, smiling as the slight crackle of the salt line against the aged wood added its own harmony.

His eyes strayed somewhat longingly to the piano that taunted from the corner of the room, fingers straining to try and jot down some of the music in his head before it faded away and left him once more but common sense whispered that it would be too loud, it would drown out the rest of the music instead of joining with it, it should be left alone and so Dean drew himself away from the ebony and ivory and slipped soundlessly out of the door.

The harmonic buzz of the lights overheard formed the backbone of the tune this time along with the rhythmic brushing of his feet against the carpet. Every now and then, a bubble of laughter from a room or the sound of a chattering voice would dip into the rhythm, tugging and whirling the tune off in another direction, to Dean's first kiss and the sweet press of cherry-flavoured lip gloss against his mouth and onwards to the first time that Dean had slept with a girl, the awkward tumbling, the hitched and fumbled breaths and the laughter when the natural rhythm had been found and even the hot tight pleasure that had surged through him formed part of the music, guiding his footsteps down the corridor.

"Hey lad, what'cha doing about?" A gruff voice joined seamlessly into the song and the tang of salt that clung to his clothes created its own peppery chorus, "Your brother said you were out for the count."

"Needed some air." Even Dean's own rough voice fit the tune, a sea shanty of old friends met and lost. The echo of his father once more and the half-remembered lilt of his mother's voice as she tucked him in filled the air, "I think I drank a bit too much last night."

The slap of a hand on his back created a brief lull in the music before it began its crescendo up towards the whirling dervish, "Been there, done that. By the sound of it, you put on a show."

Dean joined his laughter to Jerry's own, enjoying the blissful harmony it created along with the long-forgotten sound of his father's laughter and the open amusement that Sam often displayed. There was also Cassie's laughter, soft and gentle in the middle of the night, luring and enticing. "So Sammy informed me, I'm sure I'll not live to hear the end of it." Of that, Dean truly was sure. No-one could listen to music as beautiful as this and ever expect to go on without it.

"How are you doing with tracking the whatever it is?" Jerry asked, his voice shorter and tighter than normal.

"I think I'm very close," Dean replied and smiled as the tenor of Jerry's voice blended into the waltz of sleepless nights and blissful days and the rest that would come at the end of it all. "I should probably finish my round and head back to Sam before he worries himself to an early grave." It was what Dean should do but all the shoulds and woulds and coulds and never could have beens formed an intricate melody in his mind and he knew he was doing the only thing that he could at that moment.

"Okay, lad." Jerry said gruffly, "Take care of yourself." The swish-thud of Jerry's footsteps occupied the lead in the tune until they faded away around the corner and Dean's own swishing footsteps carried him towards the steps up to the deck. The metal grating was rough and cold against his bare feet and the shiver that slid up his skin provided a jingling counterpoint as step by step he climbed, keeping his footsteps syncopated to the heartbeat thuds that rang his skull to the exquisite pain of the headache.

The tang of salty sea air and the crashing waves against the side of the boat created a roaring thunder in the song that sung itself throughout Dean's entire frame now and he scanned briefly for anyone else on the deck that might be able to share the music too. There was no-one and he walked lonely once more, the rush of the water a harmony to his loneliness now and the only rhythm now was provided by 'You'll have to kill him' echoed again and again in his father's gruff voice, his father's final words to him, the legacy of a life spent hunting.

The cold metal of the rails sung into him and he lifted one bare foot to the rail, curling and arching his foot over it, keeping a grip despite the salt-slick smoothness. He could have vaulted the railing but he wanted to preserve his part of the song, lock away the haunting sweetness in his soul before the final dive. Dean faced the back of the ship, watching fascinated at the puffs of white kicked up by the back of the boat, he gripped the rail in both hands and leaned out, feeling the rush of air lifting and buoying him.

Then he let go.

-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-

Sam wasn't sure what had woken him up. As he attempted to clear the sleep fuzz that settled around his mind, his ears sought out what could have disturbed him from his sleep. His eyes fell first upon the water feature that had plagued Dean but Sam felt no need to use the toilet so he dismissed that. Moments later he turned to check on his sleeping brother and found only twisted empty sheets. For seconds, Sam couldn't breathe against the panic that lurched into his throat and then the adrenalin kicked in, speeding around his body and drop-kicking every organ into action. Sam lurched up to his feet and scoured the room for any sign of his brother.

His feet carried him towards the bathroom, hoping that Dean was just emptying his stomach once more but there was no sign of his brother there nor was he anywhere in the lounge. Sam cursed his brother, hoping that this was just another case of Dean doing what Dean does and to hell with anyone that might worry about him. Sam pulled on just enough clothes to be respectable and headed out into the corridor.

The corridor seemed to stretch endlessly into either direction and the bright overhead lights dazzled Sam's still waking vision. He considered eenie-meanie-miney-mo before opting for the worst case scenario and pacing down the corridor which he knew led towards the steps up to deck. He passed a couple of guests on the way, barely acknowledging them except with a nod. He picked up the pace, heart thudding in his chest.

When Sam's hand closed on the metal banister of the steps that led upwards, he had to pause a moment to suck in deep breaths, the knife-fine edge of panic almost tottering him over into hyperventilation. Dean might need him, Sam thought as he forced his breathing to slow and began the ascent up to the deck, pushing open the hatchway and clambering out in the chill of the night air.

After the artificial brightness of the corridors, it took Sam's eyes sometime to adjust to the dark outside, lit only by ropes of small bulbs that were twisting around the railings to give the deck a cheerful air. It was in the shadows of the lights that Sam spotted the figure, leaning outwards, hands on the rails. Sam didn't need the light to recognise him, knowing the shape of his brother as well as his own. A desperate wordless cry erupted from Sam's throat towards the figure just as the hands let go and it plummeted out of Sam's view.

"Somebody!" Sam screamed, almost feeling the salt stinging the back of his throat. The thunder of footsteps came up the steps and Sam spun to face them even as his own footsteps carried him to where he'd seen his brother fall. Only a soft plume of white marked the spot and before Sam knew it, his own body was clambering over the rail. "Men overboard," He retained the sense to cry out before he dove off the side towards the last place he'd seen his brother.

-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-

One of the lines from Titanic that stuck in Sam's head was about the thousand knives stabbing all over your body from the cold of the water. This wasn't iceberg territory in the middle of the Atlantic though so Sam estimated there were only five hundred and seventy two knives, five hundred and seventy three if you counted the panic knifing him in the stomach.

'No time for this' Sam's survival instinct prompted him, the voice in the back of his head that always sounded like Dean, as Sam let out a bubble of air, watching the direction of the bubbles as they rose to the surface and following. He burst through to the surface and sucked in a breath of salt-stung air before he twisted and propelled himself back down under the water.

Salt stung and clawed at his eyes but Sam kept them open, scouring the shadowed water for any sign of his brother. A twist of movement caught his attention and Sam pulled himself towards it, pushing the gargantuan limbs that his brother often teased him about to the limit to try and get down there fast and now. The movement revealed itself to be just a fish that careered away from Sam, Sam's lungs burned, reminding him of the need for oxygen and he followed the bubbles once more to the surface, knowing he'd be useless to his brother if he died too. The ship was further away now, the lights just a smear of brightness, but Sam didn't care as he sucked in another deep breath and plunged back downwards.

Sam had never believed in God so strongly as in that moment when heart, mind and silent lips sent out a wordless cry to the deity he had never lost faith in despite, or perhaps because of, the terrible things he'd seen. He promised everything he had to promise if he could just reach his brother in time. Sam believed in God but he trusted in himself as he pulled himself down into the water, striving to go deeper and deeper, hoping for any glimpse of his brother. He felt the burning ache in his chest once more telling him he should return to the surface and breathe again but instead he pushed himself down further, hoping for the extra inches that would make the difference.

His fingers snagged on cloth.

Sam twisted his body in the water, barely daring to look as ice cold fingers tightened their grip on whatever they had caught and tired legs began once more to kick towards the surface, desperation providing the fuel his body needed. He raised his hands up and blurred eyes gave him the image of khaki shirt in his fingers and the pale face of his brother, paler than Sam had ever seen, lips blue and dark shadows around the eyes.

Sam kicked upwards towards the surface, pushing with every piece of strength he had left whilst maintaining his death grip on the sodden, un-moving form of his brother. The water was murky and dark and Sam's eyes stung with the effort of keeping them open but he persevered, desperate for a glimpse of moonlight and a chance of life. It was when he saw the first glimmer of moonlight through shadowed water that he realised he would never make it that far. He tried to burn whatever reserves of energy were left in his body but the glimmering through the water remained just too far away.

Suddenly his blurred eyes alerted him to a monstrous black figure spiralling down from above and Sam's body jerked as it flooded once more with adrenalin, his exhausted legs pumping to pull himself and the dead weight of his brother away. The monster was faster though and soon, it was directly in front of him. Sam rapidly blinked salt-stung eyes to try and clear his vision, trying to find that last reserve of strength to get himself away. Dean sagged in his grip and Sam felt nerveless fingers begin to let go.

The monster seized Dean and Sam felt the brush of rubbery smooth skin as it brushed him. Sam opened his mouth in a wordless scream and felt the brine rush in, gagging him. Something was pressed into his mouth and suddenly he felt the blessed relief of oxygen once more. His chest heaved as he pulled more and more air into starved lungs. He felt the thing pulled out again and snapped his mouth shut to prevent any water getting in. The not-monster wavered in front of him and Sam could just make out the black-clad limbs as one arm gestured upwards, the other keeping Dean held in a tight grip.

Sam nodded and they rose up to the surface, Dean clasped between them and the breather being passed back and forth. Sam had never loved the air as much as he did when he felt it against his shoulders as they broke the surface. Almost as soon as he was through, he felt strong hands on his shoulders and he was pulled into the boat now rocking on the ocean. Moments later, similar hands took Dean from the scuba diver and lifted him into another boat waiting nearby. Sam's still blurred vision could make out a rush of movement as they worked on his brother. The diver swum back to Sam's boat and pulled himself out, pulling off the mask and rubber headpiece to reveal an angry-looking Jerry. "Of all the.."

"Not the time," A voice said to Jerry's right and Sam swung his head where he could see an equally burly man sitting at the oars. Jerry shifted himself around to an oar and seized hold, setting a pace back to the lift on the side of the ship. Sam felt a blanket being wrapped around his shoulders and pulled tight.

Sam knew he was very cold and knew he was wet but somehow none of that seemed to matter except for the fact that his brother was in the other boat and, by the still busy movements Sam could see, they were still trying to save his life. He watched as that boat was rowed towards the ship which had come about at some point and was now halted nearby. He watched as the mechanical elevator system lifted it up out of the water towards the deck. He saw the people on deck and caught a glimpse of his brother as he was lifted out of the boat and onto a waiting trolley and whisked out of sight.

Sam knew someone was talking to him and that rough hands were chafing his arms but he couldn't hear anything beyond the drumming of his heartbeat in his ears. The gentle swing alerted him to the fact that his boat was now making its way up in the elevator. Hands grabbed and hauled him onto some trolley and then he was moving swiftly down corridors and his only thought that was that at least they were taking him to his brother and he would see Dean. When the trolley stopped in the clinical white room that could only be an infirmary, there was no sign of his brother and Sam felt his constant companion panic make its presence felt once more.

"Wuh-where?" He forced the words out of chattering teeth and constricted throat.

"Lie back," A soft voice instructed and a face swam into view, Dean would have called it pretty. It took him a few moments to recognise Abigail, one of the nurses he'd seen occasionally in the off-duty room, "JB, lie back. You are freezing."

Sam lay back obediently. His brother wasn't there so there was no movement anymore. He let his eyes drift close, feeling the edges of sleep rock against his mind. That was, until he felt the sharp sting of a slap against his numb cheek, "Wha?" He protested.

"No sleeping," Abigail commanded, "We need to get you warm." He heard the snip of scissors as his drenched clothes were cut away from him, replaced by heated blankets that tingled and prickled against Sam's icy skin. An oxygen mask was placed over his mouth and nose and Sam inhaled the warmed air, letting it settle into parched lungs.

"D-D-D," Sam couldn't understand why the first word he had ever learnt to say was now so much of a challenge but he persisted in trying to push it out of his mouth, "Deeee."

He felt Abigail's palm warm against his forehead and then the rub of a towel on his hair, "What is it, JB? You worried about that passenger? He's next door with Janey. I think that's a little above and beyond the call of duty, diving in like that. Jerry looked furious at you."

Sam just mutely nodded to her words, exhaustion beyond measure to put out the effort of speaking again. Gradually the cold-onset lethargy sluiced away from him as the warming began to take effect and spiky pins and needles raced over his sensitive skin.

As soon as Sam was feeling well enough he sat up from the bed. Abigail tsked at him and tried to persuade him to sit back down but Sam refused. In the end Abigail handed him a hospital gown, turning her back as Sam rapidly wriggled into it and then wrapped the blankets around him again. "Please, I want to know about… about the passenger I rescued. Is he alright?"

Abigail rolled her eyes, "Too damn nice for your own good, JB. You stay here and rest up and I'll go find Jerry."

Sam knew he should listen to the nurse, they generally had the right idea when it came to medicine but then there was the right idea and the idea which would get him closer to Dean. Sam slipped off his oxygen mask and slid back down off the bed, bare feet padding against cool hospital tiles. He kept the blankets, snuggling around them as a barrier from the cold and against the reality of what was happening to his brother.

There's only one door in the room and Sam made his way out of it, supporting himself for a moment on the metal handle when his legs gave for a moment. He found himself in a long corridor, the same pristine white as the room he just left, with three doors spaced at regular intervals downwards. There were chairs lined the walls opposite the doors and Sam resisted the temptation to sink down into one just for a moment. He was just approaching the first of the other doors when Jerry erupted out of it, raking a hand back through his salt and pepper hair with a tense expression before he noticed the youngest Winchester.

His expression instantly morphed and he stepped up into Sam's personal space, standing so close that Sam could count the pores on his tip of his nose. "That has to be without a doubt the most foolish and ignorant thing that I have ever seen anyone do and boy, I used to help train the rookies. What the hell do you think you were doing? No, don't answer that. It's abundantly clear to me that you weren't thinking whatsoever. If you were thinking, you'd know that a highly trained crew of ex-marines would have a far better chance of getting your brother out of the water. If you were thinking, you'd realise that putting yourself in the water only meant that we had to pull out two people instead of one. If you were thinking, you just might have realised that having someone to point out where your brother had gone down might have meant we got to him all the sooner and maybe he wouldn't be in a coma right now."

"That's enough, Jerry." The soft voice of the doctor interrupted the tirade as the slim woman walked out of the door that lead to where Dean was being treated.

Sam felt like he was just an inch tall in that moment and he looked almost tearfully towards the doctor, "Is Dean going to be okay?"

"Sit." The doctor said, her voice no less commanding for its lack of volume and Sam sat in one of the chairs. He had gotten used to hospital waiting chairs over the years, considered the hard plastic to be an apt punishment for whatever had happened to land his family in there in the first place so the plush leather seats in the infirmary felt like a luxury Sam didn't deserve. "Your brother is alive," She said as soon as the boy obeyed. "But he swallowed a lot of water and he wasn't breathing down there for a long time, we won't know if there was any brain damage until he's awake. He also hit the water hard, punctured a lung, broke a couple of ribs. I wish I could tell you for certain but we really won't know much until he wakes up. I've got him sedated at the moment because he needs the ventilator and if he wakes up and starts fighting it, it will do him too much damage. With hope, I'll be able to remove him from sedation in a couple of days and we can see what happens."

"Sam? Sam!" The gruff voice of the ex-marine sounded like it was coming from miles away and Sam could barely make it out over the ringing in his ears and the thundering of his heartbeat in his skull, "Damn it, he's going into shock." Sam felt a hand at the back of his head as it was pushed down between his knees, "Breathe, boy. Breathe!" Sam sucked in air, his chest feeling tight and he couldn't see beyond the blotches that decorated his vision. A warm hand rested on his back and rubbed, the weight so like his fathers that for a moment, Sam thought he was really there. Ever-so-slowly, Sam took back control of his body and eventually felt the same hand lifting his face back up. To his disappointment, he looked into the worried blue-green eyes of Jerry, "You back with us?"

"Yeah," Sam croaked, feeling like he'd just ran a marathon, unable to stop the tremors that ran havoc through his body, "I just…"

"No need to explain, boy." Jerry cut him off, "Janey may be one of the finest doctors that I've ever had the fortune to meet, heaven knows I'd be a corpse three times over without her, but she has yet to master the subtleties of bedside manner. We usually let Casey deal with patients but she's busy monitoring your brother."

"Dean!" Just the mere mention of his brother was enough to snap Sam into the here and now, "Can I see him?"

Dr Janey had been loitering nearby, a guilty look on her face at the distress her words had caused to the young man, "In a moment, get your strength back. I'll warn you, he doesn't look great."

"Been trying to tell him that for years." Sam half-heartedly jested.

Janey smiled, "There's a tube down his throat helping him breathe, several other wires attached monitoring his pulse ox, heart function, electrolyte levels. He's got a chest tube in to relieve the pressure on his lungs. He's covered up with a number of warming blankets. While you managed to get him out of the water before he turned hypothermic, he's still in the danger zone if his body temperature drops."

Sam had thought he would get used to the sight of his brother looking three shades of crap on a hospital bed but every time the first sight of him was like a full body slam right into the pit of his stomach and Sam wobbled a little before making an unsteady, and determinedly unaided, pace across to the seat someone had conveniently put beside his brother's bed. Sam couldn't actually see that much of Dean from beneath the wires and tubes and blankets that seemed to twist haphazardly around his upper body though Sam was sure it all made sense to the doctor. His face was pale and dark shadows purpled under his taped-shut eyes. The plastic tube coming out of Dean's mouth attached to the ventilator almost made Sam gag as he remembered the same situation not that many months before.

"I know it looks bad," Janey's voice said, "But he's actually holding his own. I need to get some more X-rays done but I should be able to remove the chest tube by tonight. You should try talking to him, they say coma patients can hear." Janey nodded to her nurse who was monitoring Dean's vitals and the two of them drew back a little to give Sam room to talk to his brother.

"Idiot," Sam cussed under his breath, "It's just a mermaid, Sammy. Nothing to worry about, Sammy. How many times do I need to tell you not to follow the voices? If there is one telling you right now to head into the light, just ignore it, alright? Light is over-rated anyway."

Sam felt a squeeze on his shoulder and saw the bulk of Jerry towering over his seated frame, "I know now is not the best time, Sam, but I need to know what the hell happened." His voice was softer than his previous shout but there was still an angry edge to it.

Sam turned away from his brother and curled his blankets tighter around himself, "It's a mermaid." He answered, keeping his voice pitched low enough that the doctor and nurse couldn't hear, "We found out that James had seen one three days before he died though no luck on finding out about Alan. Dean saw it three days ago. I thought we'd be fine, I was blocking him in on the bed but when I woke up, he wasn't there anymore." Sam had to pause to calm his breathing, eyes dragging themselves back to his brother before he forced himself to look away, "I headed up towards the deck. I wasn't sure that's where he'd go but I figured it was the most dangerous place. He was just standing there leaning off the back of the boat, I yelled to him and he just.." Sam shrugged and shook his head, barely believing it himself, "He just let go. I yelled to a couple of members of staff then dived in after him. The rest you probably know."

"The fall alone coulda killed you," Jerry grunted, "You are lucky, both of you are damn lucky."

"Jerry," Janey's tone was a little spiked and warning as the short, dark-haired doctor nodded to where Sam slumped in his seat.

Jerry scowled and turned towards the door, "I'm going to go sort this mess out. Hopefully none of the other passengers saw it." He snapped off a salute, more out of habit than any respect to the room's occupants, and marched out of the door.


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer and notes in chapter one**

**A/N: **Some of you who were mad at Jerry for yelling at Sam should like this chapter!

Thanks to relativity1953 for pointing out some stealth typos in the last chapter. Hopefully I tracked down and zapped them all in this one.

Thanks as ever to my beta and friend, TraSan, who read over this chapter and helped prevent me accidentally having Sam refer to his brother as a bloody prat (even if he deserves it!)

* * *

Sam stared down at the too still figure lying on the infirmary bed. Dean's skin was blanched, each freckle showing up in stark relief, and his chest only rose and fell with the assistance of the ugly plastic tube in his mouth. Janey had reassured him that Dean was mainly still on a ventilator until they were sure he could support his own airway but that didn't stop the Sam hating the sight of it.

"Hey Dean," Sam whispered. "So you promised me a talk this morning, I had kind of hoped it would be a two day thing." Sam rested a hand on his brother's arm, resisting the urge to flinch from the clammy skin, "Your determination to avoid chick-flick moments is starting to get a bit ridiculous. Tell you what, you wake up right now and I won't push you to talk for at least a month, deal?" He watched his brother's closed eyelids for any flutter of long lashes that might hint towards awakening.

"Fine," Sam concluded when none were forthcoming. "I guess I'll have to do all the talking. Nothing new there, right?"

Sam searched his brain for what to talk about and finally settled on a topic. "Do you know how me and Jess got together?" Sam asked. This was just the sort of soppy stuff that Dean would usually taunt him about, "It was a blind date. One of my friends, Misty, was a determined match-maker. I swear it actually caused her physical pain to see single people. She'd been in a committed relationship with her boyfriend since she was eleven and they had their whole lives planned out right down to the colour of the curtains in their youngest daughter's bedroom. Anyway, she found out I was single and told me that there was a single friend of hers I'd be perfect for."

Sam watched his brother cautiously for any return to consciousness. Seeing none, he continued, "Turns out that Jessica was actually a friend of a friend of someone who sat nearby in lectures. I found this out about ten minutes before the date was supposed to begin and needless to say I was a little nervous. Well, maybe it is needful for you seeing as you never had any trouble with women. I was never really into the whole dating scene, you might have noticed. It didn't help having a brother like you around." Sam dredged up an aggrieved memory, "You know Dean the generally accepted societal norm for accidentally walking in on your brother's first time is to slink out of the room and pretend you never saw anything. It is not to start clapping and say 'About time, little brother'"

His scowl softened as he looked down on his comatose brother once more and squeezed his arm, "Anyway, as I mentioned I was a little nervous and waiting in the bar, I got a little more nervous and I just kept having a few drinks because it seemed like the thing to do. I was sure people were watching me, speculating on how long before I realised the girl stood me up and then the door opened and Jess walked in and I swear she was one of the most beautiful things I'd ever seen. If I'd been a cartoon, there would've been the whole jaw hitting the ground, eyes bugging out. Complete love at first sight." Sam sighed, "Completely one-sided love at first sight."

"You may recall me telling you I'd had a bit to drink. I'd had a lot of drink. I made such a complete idiot out of myself that I wouldn't have given myself the time of day. Jess just smiled and gritted her teeth and I could see her thinking about the various ways she would get revenge on whoever had set her up. The date ended at ten on the dot with a clash of teeth that barely passed for a kiss and I went home alone with a fake phone number. Not exactly the most auspicious start."

"I didn't see Jess for about three months after that. I don't think she was avoiding me but we had no classes together and didn't exactly socialise in the same group. After the disaster of my first blind date, Misty set me up for several others. I learnt my lesson about drinking that time but none of the girls were exactly my type. Misty had me pegged as a nerdy egg-head, don't laugh, so all the girls were cut from the same mould. Geeky women who would chatter for hours about their latest experiment or the social implications of some bill they'd heard about. Don't get me wrong, I like geeky women but as friends. Was it so wrong to want a girlfriend with a bit of a spark?"

Sam poked a finger into Dean's limp arm, sure that his humiliating story must be provoking some kind of teasing older brother reaction but there was no change in Dean or on the monitors that constantly beeped a measure of his life, "So three months later, I'm sitting in the library and I've got my head in one of the most dusty law tomes trying to research some obscure law for a paper due the next day. I look an absolute mess. Yes, more than normal." Sam filled in his silent brother's half of the conversation, "I haven't slept for around thirty hours, there's dust coating my hair and I'm wearing the same clothes as I have for the past three days. I hear the pull of a chair nearby, the library is pretty crowded with cramming students, but I don't bother looking up, just squinting against the text, trying to track down the one reference I need for the bibliography. I finally gave up and closed up the book, slamming it down on the desk and banging my head on the cover. I hear a voice ask 'You alright?' and look up straight into the eyes of Jess."

"She didn't look that happy to see me," Sam deadpanned. "It didn't help that I immediately turned a bright shade of red and tried to stuff my head back behind the book. Jess wasn't exactly a shrinking violet though and she starts loudly haranguing me in the middle of the library about being drunk. Never mind that I hadn't touched a drop. Next thing I know the librarian comes over and starts asking me if I'm drunk and defacing college property. I then have to sit through a humiliating half hour as the librarian turns page by page through the book I'd been fact-checking in to look for any sign of defacement. Luckily for me, there wasn't and I was allowed to leave."

Sam felt a blush on his cheeks at the memory flooded back, "I almost left the college right then and there. Decided that so-called normal people were just too freaking odd but then Jess caught up with me just as I was descending the library steps and, would you believe it, she actually apologised. I tried to accept her apology but it felt like a dictionary had exploded in my head and letters A through G all tried to come out at once. Fortunately I managed to recover my English speaking skills for just long enough to ask her out for a meal to make up for the last attempted date. The meal went well and the rest, as they say, is history."

Sam stared for a full minute at his brother, hoping Dean would wake up and make some snarky comment about Sam's alcohol tolerance or hiding his head in books. Sam would even settle for nonsensical gibberish if it just meant his brother showed some sign of recovery. Eventually the burn of Sam's eyes grew too much and he sank his head down into his arms resting on the edge of Dean's bed and just listened to the lulling noise of the respirator.

The sound of the door creaking open drew Sam out of himself and his first reaction was to check on his brother who still lay motionless in exactly the same spot Sam had last seen him. He knew the nurse, Abigail, would have to come in soon to roll Dean to make sure he didn't wake up covered in bed sores. Sam glanced to the doorway and saw Jerry standing there, watching silent and impassive.

"Come to lecture me again?" Sam croaked, leaning back enough from his brother's bed to twist and look at Jerry but without letting Dean out of range of the vision in the corner of his eye.

"No," Jerry said, his tone heavy laden with regret. "Just came to check on your brother. Any sign of him waking up yet?"

Sam shook his head, "Not even a twitch." Just saying those words caused Sam's hands to curl into a fist and the wild urge to punch something surged through his blood. He forced his hand to uncurl and gripped onto the railing of the bed, squeezing it as tight as his hand could manage.

"Don't worry yourself yet, lad. Janey said it might be a few days, his body has been through the wringer." Jerry walked over and pulled up a chair on the other side of Dean and Sam automatically resented the intrusion.

"You aren't kidding," Sam said with a stifled laugh, "Has Janey said how long before she thinks she can extubate him?"

"She says she needs to be sure he can make respiratory effort first." Jerry answered, rattling off the medical terms with ease.

Sam scowled, "I don't want him waking up with that tube still down his throat." Sam shifted his chair back a little, planning to tracking down Janey himself but even the small extra distance from his brother's bedside seem to paralyse him and he froze in place, arms still a little stretched.

Jerry looked sympathetically towards him and, in many ways, that was the worst bit. He didn't want sympathy, he wanted his brother conscious and ribbing him about being a big girl's blouse. "I'm guessing you are talking from experience here."

"Of seeing my brother wake up choking himself on a fucking tube down his throat? Yes, I am and I am not going to see it again." He glanced to the door, trying to use the psychic abilities that he'd been burdened with to get the doctor here. As usual, his abilities proved themselves absolutely useless when Sam actually wanted them as no doctor appeared. Right now he'd settle for being able to throw something hard against the wall.

"I've watched people who were like brothers to me suffer in hospital, I know it's not easy." Jerry said.

His well-meant words sparked a fire in Sam and the youngest Winchester turned a hooded angry gaze to Jerry, "Watched people who were **like** a brother? Dean **is** my brother, there is nothing you could ever have in your life that could compare to what me and Dean have so how can you tell me you know how I feel? Don't spew any of that brothers in arms bullshit at me, we're brothers in arms and brothers in blood, brothers in everything."

Jerry recoiled at the anger pouring out of Sam's gaze and he turned towards the floor, "I'm sorry, Sam." There was an awkward silence between the men for a long time fuelled by Sam's anger and Jerry's inability of think of anything to say that wouldn't sound trite. In the end he just took a deep breath and asked, "So, when was Dean last in hospital?"

Sam hastily brushed the frustrated tears threatening to fall away from his shadowed eyes. "When our Dad died," Sam said, talking more to Dean's bed than the veteran marine sitting on the other side. "Dean was pretty badly hurt in the crash too, worse than Dad. The doctors would just give us pitying looks when we asked how Dean was doing and shake their heads. It was just a matter of time really."

Jerry sat back in surprise and Sam saw his eyes track to the living, if barely, man stretched out on the bed, "Then how?"

Sam shrugged a little and then studied his brother's face making sure that Dean truly was out of it and not just faking before he said the next words, knowing how they'd rip into his brother, "Dean believes, and I think so do I, that Dad made a deal with something, something dark, in order to swap his life for Dean's. Dad was fine but just a few minutes after Dean woke up with barely a scratch left of the injuries that were killing him, Dad lay dead on his hospital room floor."

"John died a hero," Jerry said in a soft proud voice and Sam couldn't stop the burst of anger that rose up with him.

"My father was a coward," Sam spat out, "He didn't die to save Dean, he died because he didn't want to go on. We could have found another solution, hell I'd done it before, but he went straight for the easy option and snuck behind our back, made the deal, dumped his burdens onto my brother and sidled off into the sunset."

"John Winchester was a great man." Jerry stated back, unwilling to sit back while a man who had saved his life several times was run into the mud.

"Maybe he was," Sam conceded. "But he sucked fucking huge rocks as a father. I don't want to talk about it." Sam cut off anything that Jerry could say in reply and deliberately angled his body away from the man to maintain his vigil on his brother.

"I thought I should let you know, I'm going to give the order to turn the ship around and head back into land. I'll come up with an excuse for the passengers, I've managed to keep what happened hidden so far."

Sam glanced over his shoulder to the man and frowned, "No, you aren't." He turned back to face the marine, not caring that he was towered over, "You are going to stay right here and once Dean is well enough for me to leave his side, I am going to find that thing and I am going to kill it." Sam's cold words put a chill into himself and he could see a similar hint of unease on Jerry's face, "Winchesters have a rule, nothing goes after family and lives to tell about it."

Jerry swallowed a little nervously, "I'd like to humour you in this but I've got another hundred odd passengers on board to worry about."

"This ship is not going anywhere," Sam replied, "And neither are any of your passengers. Dean will be awake soon and then I'll go after that thing and you needn't worry about your little business ever again." Sam knew he was probably being unfair to the man but his prattling seemed as vapid as the chatter of the socialites on board when held in the face of Dean's condition.

"And if Dean doesn't wake soon…" Sam had to give Jerry some credit for bravery, even if he looked like he was keeping his distance from a rattlesnake.

"Dean will wake soon," Sam said, unable to countenance any alternative, "If the soon isn't quite soon enough then I'll expect you to watch over him while I'm gone." His tone held the unspoken implication of 'And heaven help you if anything happens to him while I'm gone.'

Jerry nodded and gulped and sat there in silence until finally he couldn't stand the tension any longer and with a scrape he pushed his chair back and stood, "I'll go see if I can find Janey." He muttered, fairly sure neither brother was listening and made his way out of the room.

-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-

When Dean woke up two days later, it was almost anti-climatic. Sam had had a heated argument with the doctor and told her to remove the intubation now that Dean was capable of breathing on his own. Janey had argued that it was still necessary to support his airway for the duration. Sam had said with the sort of angry determination that dared anyone to argue with him that his brother would be waking up soon and didn't need any airway support.

Sam had been yammering away about something, he couldn't even remember what it was but was fairly sure it had been something mindless like the colour of his socks or the number of paces it took to get from the infirmary to the kitchen. Janey now insisted Sam took his meals there to avoid him loitering over Dean while she performed the necessary maintenance work patients in comas needed. All of a sudden, Sam found he wasn't staring at an unresponsive face anymore but one that had fluttering eyelashes twitching beneath the eye tape. Sam didn't even have time to yell out for Janey before Dean's fluttering stilled once more.

Sam refused to move from his brother's bedside after that except to perform necessary bodily functions. Dean woke up several more times in the next twenty four hours, each time the duration of his consciousness increased. Janey removed the tape sealing Dean's eyes closed and Sam couldn't suppress the huge grin the first time Dean's eyes managed to open all the way and confused green meet worried hazel. "Hey Dean." Dean's dry lips worked as he tried to form words to his brother. "Take it easy, Dean," Sam said. "You've been in a coma for three days."

'Three' Dean's lips formed the words that his vocal chords couldn't and Sam could see the edgy shifts that meant Dean was beginning to panic.

"Hey, take it easy." Sam soothed before yelling "Janey!"

The clattering of heels herald the diminuative doctor's entrance into the room and she immediately trit-trotted to her patient's bedside, "Well, nice to finally meet you. Can you tell me where you are?"

Dean's eyes slid cautiously around the room, "Boat?" The word made it out, wheezing like a punctured accordion, "Hospital?"

"That's right," Janey said, beaming at Dean like he was a small child that had just recited his alphabet, "And what year is it?"

"Two thousand and seven." Dean's voice began strong but Sam could see his brother start to fade, eyelids sliding back to closed and his somewhat forced breaths steadying back to the normal rhythm of sleep.

"That's good, right?" Sam asked anxiously, turning to the doctor.

"It's good," Janey agreed with a nod. "The sleeping is good too, it means that his body realises it needs to let him recover. He seemed lucid so it's hopeful there was no brain damage from the oxygen deprivation." Janey then turned her doctor's eye over Sam and tsked, "You, however, need some sleep. You won't do your brother much good if you are dead on your feet." She pointed to the bed close to Dean's, knowing that to point any further would be a futile gesture, "Don't make me sedate you."

Sam clambered up to his feet and walked over to the bed, heaving himself up onto it. He knew any protest would lead to Janey setting more restrictions and that was the last thing he wanted. He angled his body so that it faced towards the sleeping form of his brother and made a show of closing his eyes, knowing sleep would be a long time coming.

-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-

"You really don't remember anything?" Sam asked again, staring at Dean who was sat up in the bed, hospital gown already revealing the weight he'd lost. It had been two days since Dean woke up and he could now manage to stay awake for a couple of hours at a time though the last hour was usually a dulcet lucidity, softer and weaker than the usual force of nature that is Dean.

"How many times do I have to tell you, Sammy?" His voice had strengthened too from the croaking crackle to a bitter whisper of itself, "I just went to sleep with the dregs of that hangover and woke up in here."

"Nothing about how you ended up taking a leap off the back of the ship?" Sam asked, almost disbelieving.

Dean just shook his head, wincing a little at the motion pulling on his bruised body, "I am still speaking English, right? Zip, nada, nothing. If it wasn't for the fact my body feels like I hit something at high impact, I'm not sure I'd believe you."

Sam scowled, "I've been researching mermaids but there's nothing mentioned anywhere about memory loss."

"Maybe their usual victims are a little too dead to complain 'oh yeah and, by the way, how did I get here?' Maybe you should cross-reference for zombie drowning victims?"

"Not helping," Sam grumbled, wondering whether the return of some of Dean's more annoying habits was a good sign or a bad.

The swing and click of a door announced the bustling figure of Dr Janey entering the room once more. She nodded briefly to the boys and hummed tunelessly to herself as she looked over Dean's chart and then the various vitals reflected in lines and squiggles on the monitors, "How are you feeling?"

"Great," Dean quickly answered before his brother could. "Can I get out of here now?"

Janey just arched one perfectly plucked ebony eyebrow and regarded the older Winchester, "That would be a no. For one thing, you still have a couple of broken ribs that need to remain immobile. For two things, there's the fact that forty eight hours ago you were in a coma." She glanced briefly to Sam and he shook his head minutely but the gesture apparently came too late, "Apparently there are also concerns of you getting off the ship again at an unscheduled stop so I think it's best you stay here where we can keep an eye on you."

"Traitor," Sam caught his brother's mutter and couldn't suppress a slight smirk which faded as the doctor pulled a pair of thick leather restraints from her bag, one each for arms and legs.

"Don't worry, you don't have to wear these except at night, just a precaution in case your feet wander along with your mind," The Doctor tried to soothe.

"Come on, Sammy, you got to be kidding me?" Dean appealed to his brother. "I'm telling you I don't even remember what happened." Dean watched the restraints like they were coiled snakes held in each hand.

"I don't believe this is your brother's decision," Janey stated before Sam had a chance to even open his mouth, "I am your doctor and part of my responsibilities is to do whatever I can for the welfare of my patient and if that means tying you to the bed, so be it."

Dean attempted his best cocky grin though it seemed a pale imitation against the pasty hue to his skin, "Baby, if you wanted to tie me to the bed, you only had to ask."

Janey rolled her eyes and held up a slender hand, pointed to the finger wrapped in a solid gold ring, "My husband is one of the engineers, I don't think he'd appreciate me relaying that story."

"Then you don't have to tell him," Dean said with a wink.

Janey just shook her head, "I've got gold." She tapped her ring again, "I don't need silver or bronze."

Dean pouted and turned his attention to Sam, "Little brother, tell me you are going to break me out of this joint?"

Sam shook his head, "Sorry, there's only so many hiding places on here and I think the sight of you at the moment would scare off half the passengers. It'd probably excite the other half and I just don't want to deal with that."

Dean leaned back against the steel headrest of the bed, "It's a hard life being this damn sexy."

"Do I need to give him a sedative? He seems to be delusional." Janey deadpanned to Sam.

Sam smirked once more at the hurt flash that flickered across his brother's face, "I think he'll be fine." Sam stretched himself out in the chair, feeling his head start to nod downwards. A quick glance at his brother showed a similar lassitude settled over.

He felt Janey squeeze his shoulder, "Help me get your brother lying down and then you should get some rest too." She nodded over to the bed which had become Sam's for the duration of Dean's stay in here.

Sam stood, feeling his long limbs ache and click from the time spent sitting all day, and helped Janey gently lever his drowsing brother flat. He flinched and looked away as the doctor impersonally and methodically fastened the restraints on Dean's arms and legs, his brother now so out of it in half-slumber that he didn't even flail a protest. Janey just raised a finger when she was done and pointed Sam over to his bed.

Sam clambered in, pulling the thin hospital sheet and the thicker blankets over himself. He tilted himself onto his side, not his favourite sleeping position but the only one that had let him keep an eye on Dean and felt his eyelids droop closed.

-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-

When Dean could hear the soft murmuring noise of Sammy asleep, he opened his eyes once again. It hurt. He had broken the music and it hurt. The once smooth notes that fitted into each other like a jigsaw were now discordant, clanging into each other like a mis-tuned wind chime in a tornado. The steady beep of the heart monitor tore into his skull, clashing tones that pulled and ripped at his mind.

He was supposed to be somewhere and he knew it, the insistent buzz in the back of his mind the only remainder of the glorious symphony he had heard. Dean glanced to the restraints binding each wrist to the bed and scowled. He tugged at each in turn and felt little give. That doctor wasn't taking chances.

But neither was Dean. Ever since the incident with Gordon Walker, Dean had sworn to himself that he'd never be left tied up again when he was needed. Dean pulled at each of the straps, testing how much they gave to figure out which one would be easiest to unfasten. The left was slightly looser but the difference was small enough that it made sense for Dean to work on the right, using the extra strength in his dominant arm.

The noise of the strap against the metal side of the bed seemed to grate abnormally loud in Dean's ears and he had to bite his lip to distract himself from it. He worked in time with the breaths he could hear from his brother, tugging against the leather and ignoring the way it bit into his skin.

Finally he got enough of a gap and Dean folded his hand as close together as possible and wrenched it pain-staking inch by inch out of the restraint. He caught the now-empty leather before it could clang against the bed. His free right hand made quick work of the restraint of his left and then he slowly creaked up to a seated position, ignoring the clamouring cacophonous protest from his ribs to unfasten the restraints at his ankles.

Inching himself silently off the bed seemed to take far too long. Dean knew time was of the essence. It wouldn't be too long before the doctor or one of the nurses came in to check on him. However any noise would surely raise his brother from uneasy slumber and Dean had a feeling he wouldn't be able to write it off as memory loss twice.

Finally he slipped off the edge of a bed to the merest of thumps, bare feet meeting cold tiles and he had to suppress a hiss of breath. The door was a challenge, he had heard a squeak from the people going in and out earlier and, as much as Dean longed for the noise to try and reset the equilibrium of the music, he knew this music would betray him. Instead Dean opened the door centimetre by centimetre, one hand braced on either side to exactly control it. Once it was open, Dean slipped his illness-slimmed frame out of the door and repeated the laborious process to get it closed.

Once out, time and stealth became of the essence. The hospital gown provided little in the way of warmth and even less in the way of modesty. If anyone saw him out and about then the whole gig was up. He paced quickly down the corridor, bare feet slapping against the tiles and headed towards the double doors that led out. The lights outside had been dimmed for the night but it was enough to make out a ship's map hung on the opposite wall. Dean walked over and traced the path from where he was now to where he needed to be with blunt fingertips.

All through the journey from the infirmary up to the familiar steps, Dean felt the music shift and change, forgiving him for his previous failure as the sounds began to blend better and his life blurred into itself. The pain in his body still stabbed at him but he let it become just another part of the song, a backing track that enhanced without interfering.

Dean could've sworn the stairs creaked more than last time and he made his way up them, pushing open the hatchway a little and peered out through squinted eyes towards the deck. He could see a couple of staff ambling about the deck, breath misting in the chill of the air. He judged the distance between the hatchway and the railing. There would be no gentle climb or blissful hold before release this time, just a smooth vault over the side to the finale that waited below.

Dean pushed open the hatchway, not caring about the clang it made as he knew that the marines would spot him either way. He'd misjudged a little as the fiery pain in his chest impeded his progress despite the song's best efforts to convince him it was nothing to worry about. The staff were still far away though and Dean was sure that he would make it this time. He uttered a silent apology to his brother: not for leaving him but for the fact he couldn't share this song with him.

Dean was about two strides away from the railing when he felt the solid bulk of his brother crash into him, slamming him into the railing, and then a single white hot note of purest pain seared into his mind, blocking out all the other noise. In that moment of clarity, Dean tried to choke out an explanation to his brother, "It hurts! It's broken."

He felt Sam's arms cradling him and holding him tight, an anchor against the storm. "It's alright, Dean." His brother's voice soothed, "We'll go back to the infirmary and they'll fix your arm. They'll fix it." He could see his brother's breath misting the air in swift, heaving puffs and the panic flaring in his eyes.

Dean opened his mouth to correct his brother's assumption but the music crashed through the barrier of pain, at once soothing and sweet, filling his mind with contentment as it teased and toyed with the threads of thought until Dean couldn't even remember what he'd wanted to say.


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer and notes in chapter one**

**A/N:**Take one phone-phobic, socially awkward programmer trying to organise an Xmas party. Add in a General Operations Manager who hates spending money and an administrative assistant who has lost her voice. What do you get? No, not my NaNoWriMo synopsis… that's my week! Or rather add on a massive workload and a QA deadline that was… erm… today and you have my week so if I'm a bit slow responding to reviews, that's why. They really do brighten up my day though and are so so appreciated.

Even more appreciated is my amazing beta, TraSan, who never fails to cheer me up! Especially with cows with guns.

* * *

From the moment of Dean's jump attempt on, the music became ever-present, winding and twining around his thoughts like an inquisitive child with a new toy, trying to figure out how all the parts fit together. It learnt quickly how to evoke emotions and memories, turning cartwheeling arpeggios through the most painful parts of Dean's life and forcing the last trace of his mind that was still entirely Dean back into a cage formed from semiquavers of resistance.

The song learnt how to reward. When Dean did what it wanted, when he struggled against the bonds that held him, when he searched for escape, the music became orgasmically sweet, playing fast and loose with Dean's most beloved memories from his mother's last lullaby to the sound of his brother's voice still alive after the traps set by Gordon.

The song knew how to punish. It had access to the remembered pain of every physical hurt that Dean had taken, to the origin of every scar. Worse than that, it knew the root straight down to the secrets Dean hid: to the sound of his Dad's voice as it imparted his last secret or the disappointed anger when Dean had left Sammy alone, unprotected from the shtriga. It had Cassie's smooth voice as she told Dean to get out after he bared his soul to her and the thousand slammed doors of those that left Dean.

Needless to say, the song did not like Sam. Ever since the moment Sam had tackled Dean and stopped him from completing the music, the song turned harsh and grating if Sam was in the room. Just the sound of Sam's voice seemed too loud, too soft, too high, too low and brought flinches of real physical pain to Dean. The pad of Sam's feet were always out of synch with the tune, a beat too fast or too slow to the point that Dean would have to press his hands to his ears, scrunching his eyes shut in an attempt to level out the music once again.

The song could be loud, crashing and thundering in Dean's mind like a waterfall, obliterating any other sound and pushing darkly at his vision. The song could be whisper quiet, the only clue to its presence being the unnatural note of the noise around him that didn't quite fit it. The song was and Dean was reaching the point where he wasn't sure if it ever hadn't been.

---

Sam sat in one of the leather chairs outside the infirmary with his head gripped in his hands, trying to pull together enough courage to walk through the door and visit his brother. He tried to steel himself against the flinches and the winces and then the way Dean's red-rimed eyes would meet his, begging silently for some form of relief that Sam couldn't and would not provide.

Most of all Sam hated the small part of his mind that was glad his brother was like this. Because as horrible as the broken, twisted husk of his brother in that room was, it was better than the brother who joked and laughed and teased Sam about the hunt and then turned around and tried to throw himself off the back of the boat. At least here Sam knew where his feet were, half-hung off a cliff with his hands wind milling to keep the shred of balance but at least he knew.

Sam stuttered to his feet and paced towards the door, grinding to a halt just outside arm's reach of the door and then turned once more to head back the way he came, slumping down into the chair feeling only disappointment at himself.

The sound of door opening didn't even bring Sam to lift his head, expecting the dark-haired doctor making her way out for another progress report. It took Sam long moments to realise the opening door had come from the opposite direction and now Sam's head shot up and turned in the direction, meeting the eyes of Jerry.

The marine looked old, the white of his hair seemed starker and the lines on his face clearer than when Sam had first met him. Sam found he was glad. So many times he and Dean got phone calls of friends of their Dad, so-called friends who didn't seem to mind throwing their dear acquaintance's sons head-first into whatever situation they'd got themselves into. Just for once it was nice to one of them to feel the weight of the consequences.

"How's your brother doing?" Jerry asked, sagging down into a seat next to Sam's, his voice cracked from lack of sleep.

"Got a broken arm to add to his list of injuries," Sam said, "He's, he's practically catatonic, not responding to anything else except what's going on in his head." Or when Sam walks in and he starts screaming out in pain.

Jerry couldn't meet Sam's gaze and just shifted to study the floor, the wall, anything but the man in the chair by him, "I've given the order to turn the ship around. We'll make land in about seven days at full speed and I'll pay for your brother to get the best treatment money can buy."

"I don't think the average doctor knows how to cure having your mind fucked about with by a mermaid," Sam bitterly stated, keeping his eyes fixed on the door to his brother's room, waiting for Janey to come out. It took a while for the first part of what Jerry said to filter through and Sam swung to face the veteran marine dead-on, "You are turning the ship around again? I told you not to."

"Yes, you did." Jerry said in a calm, quiet voice, "And then your brother tried to jump off the back again. I think this is best for everyone."

"Best for you, maybe." Sam snarled, "You can hang up a poster on your door saying alas, the poor failed cruise director and go back to whatever crappy, safe, little hole that you lived in before now. My brother however is stuck in the real world with no guarantee that sticking our heads between our legs is going to make him better." Sam forced himself to breathe slower, stilled his hands from where they had clenched into fists, "We are staying right here until I figure this thing out, do you understand me?"

"This is my ship," Jerry stated, dark brows lowering over his bright blue eyes.

"And this is my life," Sam retorted, "I'm sure you've heard of REMFs. Well, that doesn't just apply to the military." Sam wanted to get up and pace but forced himself to stillness before turning to Jerry, "Do you have any scuba-diving gear that would fit me?"

Jerry blinked at the change of topic, "Erm, possibly. You aren't the tallest person aboard. Why?"

"Because I always thought I looked good in black," Sam snarked. "Why do you think? So I can go into the water, track down the mermaid and do my job."

"Are you sure that's a good idea?"

"Of course not," Sam said with a laugh on the edge of hysteria, "But hunting isn't about having good ideas, it's about having ideas and when the first one doesn't work, picking yourself up from the pile by the wall and trying the next one. There isn't exactly a handbook for this."

"I'll come with you."

"Like hell you will," Sam replied.

"Have you ever even scuba-dived before?"

"I took a taster session at my college's sub-aqua society."

Jerry shook his head, "I'm not letting you down there without me. Always diving with a buddy, it's the number one rule."

"I know about buddy diving but there's only one person in this world left that I trust to watch my back and he's lying in that room unable to cope with the sound of my voice."

"Your father trusted me to watch his back."

"Fine for him, I'm not my father. I'll trust you to watch Dean's back instead. There's no point me risking everything in the ocean, only to make it all pointless in the end."

"How do you kill a mermaid?" Jerry sounded somewhat intrigued and it annoyed Sam.

"I'm hoping a silver knife to the heart will get the job done. You got any underwater flares? Most things will burn if you apply enough heat." In that moment, Sam missed his brother most as a sounding board, someone that he could bounce ideas off and wait to see which came back more sensible than before, "Dean said the mermaid tried to talk to him. Why would it do that?"

Jerry obviously didn't realise that his role was to be a mute listener as he ventured the comment of "Maybe it was trying to warn him off, telling him not to interfere."

"Makes no sense," Sam dismissed the older man's suggestion without even a pause, "It must have known that it couldn't be understood and whale song isn't exactly threatening. If it wanted to threaten, it could have done it with gestures instead of trying to use its voice."

"Maybe it didn't realise that he couldn't understand it. It could be used to humans understanding it, maybe they make sense underwater like the Harry Potter mermaids."

Sam shook his head and shot a disbelieving look at the man, "Are you suggesting that J. K. Rowling is actually a hunter trying to pass on knowledge with children's books?"

Jerry shook his head, annoyance shooting across his face, "Of course not but she has to do research just like everyone else, doesn't she? Isn't there a chance that she stumbled across a piece of true lore and put it into her novels without realising?"

Sam realised that Jerry was right and somehow that riled him more than ever and he had to look away to stop himself from yelling at the man for having ideas, for being right and, most importantly, for not being Dean. "Fine. I'll go underwater, listen to what she has to say and then if I don't like it, I'll make sure she doesn't hurt my brother again."

"I wish you'd trust me." Jerry said with a sigh.

"I wish you'd stop asking me to." Sam replied before settling down, feeling he owed the man something for taking his bad mood out on him, "I'm sure you were a great marine but this isn't the marines and you can't beat stuff here by jumping in feet first and hoping you learn to fly before you hit the ground. Just let me do what I do best."

---

One hour later found Sam suited up in sleek black rubber and seated in one of the lifeboats next to the anchored cruise boat. Jerry had given Sam a crash course in the scuba-diving and tried once more to invite himself along on the trip. Sam had threatened to cold-cock the man there and then to stop him coming along which had finally got Jerry to back down.

Sam scanned the foreboding surface of the dark water for any bubbles or breaks that might indicate where the mermaid was lurking. He found none so in the end, he just stood on the side of the boat and let himself fall backwards into the water. It was as cold as he remembered but this time he had the wet suit trapping the moisture against his body, letting his body heat warm it as a protective layer. Sam twisted in the water and started kicking with the flippers before adjusting to the scissoring movement necessary to propel himself. One hand clicked on the light attached to the side of his mask and a weak light cut through the growing murk.

A needle in a haystack had nothing on a mermaid in the ocean as Sam glided through the water, turning his head from side to side to watch for any movements. A couple of times a fish slid by Sam and it was hard not to tug the knife from its sheath at his ankle and spear it on instinct alone.

Sam pulled one of the wet flares that he'd got off Jerry out of a loop in his belt. He twisted the top, watching it flare to life in a sickly green before letting it drop down into the water, eyes following its progress and tracking for any movement in its vicinity. Just as Sam was about to give up, a dark shadow blocked the green for a split second. Sam didn't pause, just looped in the water and sped after the shape.

It occurred to Sam during his frantic swim that maybe chasing down after something which had a habit of luring sailors to drown in the depths wasn't the best idea. He slowed a moment to check his air gauge, relieved as the steady needle told him he had plenty of air left, and continued the headlong chase. When the thing stopped mid-stream and swung about, Sam was unprepared and almost swam into it. He twisted at the last moment, feeling a wrench in his side from the effort of pushing through the water but pushed the pain down to face the thing.

'Huh,' his mind registered while it groped to pair up the fairytale image of mermaids with the thing in front of him, beauty and scales and glistening silver eyes and scales and beauty. Sam reached down for his knife and realised a slight flaw in his plan. The breather in his mouth prevented any attempt at conversation so he just gestured threateningly with the knife and hoped the thing would get the idea.

"then prepee na east-eh etho." What came out of the thing's mouth sounded nothing like the whale song that Dean had said and Sam silently awarded another point to the growing apology he would need to make to Jerry at some point, "een-eh etho perimenee."

Sam tried to make a 'I've got no fucking clue what you are saying' gesture, wishing he had mastered his brother's expression that managed to convey exactly that. Sam had often suspected Dean had developed that look especially for his little brother.

The thing hissed, a startlingly human sound and propelled itself towards Sam. Sam swung the knife, missing flesh by a hair fine fraction as the mermaid jerked itself backwards. "sas proeethopees." It stated, Sam wasn't quite sure whether to credit it as female despite an uncertain feminine cast to its features and the slight swell at the chest that could have been breasts, "airhet-eh."

Sam could have sworn it was almost fear in the inhuman eyes and his grip on the knife loosened for a moment. Their father had often growled at Sam about over-thinking the hunt, much like Sam had muttered under his breath about his father under-thinking.

The mermaid seized that opportunity and looped under his grip to grasp his arm in webbed hands, tugging him sharply upwards in the direction that Sam assumed was the surface, "peeganet-e tora part-e ton athelfi sas k-e peeganet-e." Sam struggled in the grip on his knife-holding arm but it was surprisingly strong for such a fragile looking creature, "tha stamatis-e peeganet-e tora."

Sam finally freed himself and kicked backwards away from the creature, pulling his knife out in front of him to swing around before the mermaid could attack again. Sam felt disoriented and watched the bubbles rise from his breather, relieved at least that the mermaid had been pulling towards the surface rather than down into the depths. It still didn't explain why.

Sam felt the movement rather than saw it, a current of water at his back that wasn't there before. He had no time to turn and try to see what it was before he was choking, the air out of the breather ceasing with no warning, leaving Sam no choice but to hold the dregs of his last breath in his lungs and hope it was enough. Both boys had large lung capacities, had tested each other on how long they could stay underwater but that was when they had been able to take a large breath before submerging, not when left just the shallow air from a normal breath.

Sam was on the edge of panic when he felt a blinding pressure building in his ears, like they'd popped but far worse, leaving him dizzy and sure he was falling, that he was plummeting back down into the depths despite the fact the sensation from his limbs gave him no indication of that. He struggled, trying to fight the blackness that was beginning to cloud his vision. He swung out with the knife and felt it connect once with flesh, having no idea whether it was the mermaid in front or the one behind him.

He felt a clammy hand close around his wrist once more and he was being tugged along, having no idea whether it was up or down, "leepam-e." A voice softly said and then Sam felt the blessed cool of the night air as his head broke the surface of the lake, the breather fell from his mouth as he sucked in large gulps of air, trying to quell the nausea that coiled in his belly. His black-dotted vision could make out the shape of the boat and Sam didn't wait to make a swift pace towards it, wanting out of the water and away now.

Sam hauled himself up into the wooden cradle of the boat and lay there for a long moment, flat on his back, sucking air back and forth into his lungs and revelling in something he had always taken for granted until the moment something tried to take it away. He felt a chuckle bubble through his throat, another 'Sammy gets choked' episode to add to the list.

Common sense told Sam to get the boat out of the water and get himself out of the water as quickly as possible, to put as much distance as possible between himself and whatever had just made a very good attempt to kill him. Common sense was fighting against the dying whine of an adrenalin rush and the night chill against Sam's wet-suited body which sent tremors running through his body. Sam just stared up at the night sky, seeing how many of the stars he could name and not wanting to move ever again.

Before Sam could drift off to sleep, there was a bump against his boat and panic flooded through Sam once more at the thought that the things could be back. Sam bolted up to a seated position and felt the nausea that had been resting uneasily in his stomach leap up to his throat and he had to bend to empty his stomach back to the water.

"Damn, lad. I thought you were dead, you lay so still." Jerry's worried voice cut into the panic jabbering through Sam's mind and Sam turned his head towards where Jerry's boat now rested against Sam's, "Are you alright?"

"Peachy," Sam said in a weak voice, holding up thumb and finger in a tired imitation of the A-Ok gesture before realising he still had a clasped grip on the silver knife, dark ichorous green smeared the edge of the blade and Sam ran a curious finger along the edge.

"Of course you are," Jerry growled. "You'd think one of you boys would have managed to get a lick of sense between you." Sam felt his boat sink a little lower in the water and rock as Jerry levered himself in and took hold of the oars, ignoring Sam's protests as he rowed towards the lift.

The lifting motion of the boat set Sam's head to spinning once again and he jerked forward, emptying the rest of his stomach haplessly onto the bottom of the boat, very nearly splashing it onto Jerry. The man didn't even flinch back, just let go of the oars and shifting himself around to sit next to Sam, right in his personal space. "You boys are going to age me before my time," He said, gruffly, "And Janey is going to start thinking you have a crush on her."

When the boat reached the gap in the railings, Jerry offered an arm up to support Sam. Sam lurched up to his feet and stepped out onto the relative stability of the deck and promptly had flashbacks to the time he'd watched Bambi, he felt like Bambi on ice, four legs and all with different ideas of which direction it's a good idea to go in. It was only the swift intervention of a steady arm from Jerry that prevented Sam from measuring his length on the metal floor.

"Did I forget to mention damn stubborn?" Jerry cursed, hauling Sam up a little and stringing his arm over the veteran marine's broad shoulders, "You could at least do me the courtesy of shrinking if I've got to go to all the effort of carrying you."

Sam's brain scrambled for a witty retort before his soul informed him that this wasn't Dean and so he didn't need to. Instead he just focused on making some locomotive effort towards the infirmary. Janey took one look at the entering pair and motioned them to the room Sam had occupied before, instructing them to have him peeled out of the wet suit by the time she came in or she'd peel it off him piece by piece.

Sam felt a little humiliated as Jerry had to do most of the work. Sam's attempts to move left a spinning blur in his mind and his eyes, though now clear of black spots, were refusing to bring anything into absolute focus, giving the world a hazy tone to it. When the last bit of the rubber monstrosity was hauled off an uncooperative ankle, Sam flopped down onto the hospital bed before promptly rolling to spew into the conveniently close tray, chest jerking painfully.

He felt himself being covered with a large blanket, big hands smoothing it down around his still shaking body and Sam let himself lapse into fitful sleep.

A/N: For extra points, the language used by the mermaid is real, admittedly translated online from English and then transcribed phonetically so it may not be accurate. Points to anyone who gets what the language is!


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimers and notes in chapter one.**

**A/N:** Thanks as ever to my wonderful beta, TraSan, who even beta'd this twice when I edited the crap out of it! Any remaining mistakes are all my fault!

* * *

Sam woke to the sensation of being watched and he rolled on the bed to look. Jerry was sat, slouching by his bedside. Sam had to blink several times, clearing his vision while he tried to recall exactly how he'd ended up in the hospital bed again. His mouth felt dry, the lingering aftertaste of vomit curling his stomach once more. Jerry held out the metal bowl at the first heaving noise from Sam though this time it was only dry heaves that died to shivers wracking his body. Exhaustion threatened to pull Sam back down to sleep but he forced himself to stay awake, "Dean?" He asked desperately to Jerry.

"Your brother is unchanged," Jerry admitted, booted foot squeaking on the ground. "Whatever you did down there didn't make a difference."

Sam remembered the green-smeared knife. Either he hadn't killed the mermaid or he'd killed the wrong one. He rolled onto his back, tears stinging at his eyes. "I want to see him."

Jerry shook his head, "That's not a good idea. He got agitated during the night, Janey had to sedate him."

Sam frowned as the words percolated in his sluggish brain. "So he got worse?" Sam drew the inevitable conclusion. "Everything I did just made things worse."

"You don't know that," Jerry said in a voice Sam supposed was meant to be soothing. It only served to irritate Sam more.

"Don't I?" Sam sat up, ignoring the headrush, and swivelled his seat on the bed until he was looming over Jerry. "Because if you honestly believe the two things are unrelated then there's a bridge in Brooklyn I can sell you," Another wave of dizziness crashed over Sam, stealing the anger that he wanted in his words.

He saw Jerry reach out to steady him and he automatically drew back.

"You don't believe in coincidence?" Jerry asked, drawing his hand back to himself.

Sam snorted, "Dad always taught us that coincidences are a sign of bad planning." Jerry quirked up a brow and looked amused. Sam wasn't in the mood for another round of marine reminiscence so he repeated his earlier statement, "I want to see my brother."

Jerry opened his mouth to argue but whatever look Sam had on his face must have persuaded the older man he wasn't about to back down. "Fine, but not for long. If you upset him then Janey'll have both of our heads on a platter."

Sam had to accept some assistance into a wheelchair in order to make the short journey from his room into the one Dean now occupied. His head was still spinning and he could feel a headache edging its way in as the dizziness faded.

Dean looked much the same as when Sam had last seen him, maybe a couple of shades paler. In his sedated state, it was almost like he was just for an extended nap except that Dean would never sleep that comfortably when someone else was in the room.

Sam pushed his chair over to Dean's bedside and hovered his hand close to Dean's arm, not daring to touch in case that simple action let the mermaid know he was here and set off another round of screaming.

"What happened down there?" Jerry's tone was all business, brooking no nonsense now that he had given in to something for Sam. Sam wanted to leave the man in silence except that maybe if he answered the questions then Jerry would go away.

"Found the mermaid," Sam said nonchalantly. "Or rather both mermaids or maybe a mermaid and something else." Sam wished he'd been able to catch a glimpse of whatever had attacked him from behind, "It choked the tube and then did something, made me dizzy."

"Janey said you seemed to be suffering from an inner ear imbalance, you lapsed in and out of consciousness a few times during the night but you didn't make much sense. She was worried you might've got the bends the rate you came up but it looks like you dodged that bullet."

"During the night?" Sam asked, alarm shooting through him raising the volume of his voice. He glanced quickly to his brother to see if he'd roused him. He wasn't sure whether to be relieved or disappointed when Dean showed no sign of responding to Sam's words. "How long was I out?"

"Almost nine hours," Jerry admitted. "Had me worried though Janey said there didn't seem anything sinister about your symptoms. Just exhaustion and oxygen deprivation catching up with you seeing as you were still recovering from your last underwater adventure. She was quite peeved with me when she found out I knew what you were doing."

"Peeved is an understatement," Janey's soft voice sounded from the door and Sam realised how out of it he must still be not to have heard the door opening, "I will have a few strong words for you too, Sam, once I'm fairly sure you won't tumble over from the strain of it," She breezed over to Sam's side and gripped his wrist to take his pulse. The gesture was too familiar to what the mermaid had done and Sam tugged his wrist away, cradling it to his chest.

"Lad, let her do her job," Jerry advised, keeping just out of range of Janey's temper.

Sam reluctantly lowered his wrist, counting every heartbeat in his own ears even as Janey kept her own count. He couldn't help the sigh of relief when Janey released it, only for her to seize it again moments later and bring it up to her eye level. "Your wrist is bruised." She sounded offended, as if Sam daring to have an injury she hadn't noticed was a professional discourtesy.

"The mermaid grabbed it," Sam stated tiredly, "Hauled me up to the surface."

"I thought the mermaid was trying to kill you," Jerry said with a scratch of his head.

"I think it was a different mermaid," Sam ventured. "Or maybe I got it all wrong, I don't know." Sam felt his mind moving sluggishly, sleep tugging insistently at him even as he refused to give in.

"So is the mermaid your brother saw the one trying to kill or the one trying to save?"

"I don't know. I'd ask him but…" Sam's voice trailed off looking down at Dean's sleeping body, subconsciously breathing in time with Dean's shallow breaths. That only succeeding in boosting the dizziness and Sam forced himself to suck in another deep breath again. "Am I free to go?"

"I want to keep you in for another twenty four hours," Janey answered. "For one thing, you are in serious need of rest and this way I can be sure you won't sneak out and do something stupid."

"I can get out of this thing, right?" Sam asked, tapping long fingers on the metal frame of the wheelchair.

Janey pursed her lips like she wanted to reply in the negative but apparently thought better of it, "That'll be fine. Just let me know if you have anymore dizzy spells."

Sam nodded eagerly and pushed himself up out of the hated contraption. "So, won't the rest of the staff wonder where I am?" Sam asked.

Jerry shook his head, "I told them you've been assigned as personal servant to poor Nathaniel Edenridge who is suffering from a nasty bout of 'flu and unable to leave the infirmary. I think there's a few who are a bit suspicious but not enough to pry. Your friend, Dan, has been asking about you a lot recently."

Dan had been useful when Sam had thought that this might have a non-supernatural cause and he had been a good friend to Sam in the early weeks on the ship when Sam most missed his brother but now he ranked little better than a distraction in Sam's mind and it worried Sam how quickly he had fallen back into the pre-Stanford patterns of dependence on his brother, especially now that he couldn't talk to Dean without causing him pain. "Tell him I said hi and I look forward to catching up on gossip when I can," Sam lied.

Janey frowned down at Sam as if she was reading his thoughts. "You should get back to your own room. I don't want you disturbing Dean when he wakes up." Her tone carried all the disapproval she wouldn't say about Sam just being there.

"Jerry said he was agitated. Did he, you know, try anything else?" Sam hated the question even as he said it.

The shake of Janey's head brought blessed relief to the younger brother, "No. He just lay there, twitching, and tugging at the restraints." The relief was short lived.

Sam raised his hands up to his face, raking long fingers back through his head as he tried to force his brain to come up with what to do next, what was left to try. He knew trying to persuade either of the other two for more time with Dean was an argument he was bound to lose. He turned to face Jerry and asked a little hesitantly, "Do you have a chapel onboard?"

To say Jerry was surprised would be an understatement; utter confusion reigned on his face, "Your father wasn't a religious man."

Sam rolled his eyes, "I am not my father." He said, getting tired of trying to point out this simple fact to the man.

"I know, it's just," Jerry started and then thought better of it and changed tack, "Yes. I made certain to make room for a chapel. The passengers don't attend it much except for Sunday when civil courtesy dictates. I could take you down there if that's alright with Janey?" He deferred to the doctor.

Janey frowned but gave a grudging curt nod, "As long as you keep a close eye on him, no excursions into the deep blue yonder."

---

The pair made an awkward path to the chapel, moving in silence. Sam could see the jerks and halts in Jerry's body language that spoke of questions clipped back before they could be uttered. Usually Sam's curiosity would get the better of him and force him to push Jerry into asking but Sam's curiosity had been ruthlessly stomped and kicked into a corner by the overwhelming forces of anxiety and doubt.

The chapel turned out to be surprisingly homely amongst the wrought iron and pristine luxury that endowed most of the ship. Dark curtains draped the walls interspersed with religious-themed banners, taking away the hard edges that the room would have had. The long pews looked worn and the cushions a little ragged, looking like a place that had been well-used. There was no pulpit as such, just a simple wooden stand at the front with a bible resting upon it.

Sam made his way to a pew near the back of the room and sat down on the cushioning, feeling the hard wood through the fabric. He criss-crossed his hands over in prayer, bowed his head and closed his eyes. Abruptly all the words fled from him and all that was left to repeat mantra in his mind was 'Please God, save my brother.' Pastor Jim had often said that simplicity was best rather than wrapping up what he wanted to say in polite and beautiful terms.

The creak of wood announced Jerry taking a seat next to Sam but for once, the man didn't feel the need to fill the silence with conversations. When Sam peeked right, he found that the man had adopted a similar position to Sam, head resting against folded hands, mouth moving in silent prayer.

Sam just repeated his mantra in his head until the words clashed together, all coming at the same time in a desperate plea. He felt exhausted and wrung out and filled with dread, dread that when he returned to Dean, there would be no change not because God didn't listen but because this time, it wasn't Dean's turn to be saved.

Jerry must have noticed Sam's sped up breathing as he leaned back from his own devotions and regarded the younger man with a steady gaze, "You know, a lot of men, men that I served with, lost their faith when they saw the things we saw. Some, like your father, never had faith to lose. Me, I just can't understand that. I can't understand how people can do the sort of things that I did, that you and your brother do, without believing it's all for a higher purpose. Maybe other people are just stronger than me."

"I envy Dean," Sam said quietly. "He can do what we do without needing something else with it. Me, I need the light at the end of the tunnel when things will be normal, I need my belief that something is up there keeping an eye over us."

"Everyone has something, some are just better at hiding it than others." Jerry stated.

"Very nice homily," Sam snidely said.

"It's not a homily, it's just the truth phrased nicely," Jerry replied, keeping his tone calm and level. "For me, it's always God. I won't say that I haven't got damn mad at God sometimes, I called him the worst names I knew after my accident but that's the good thing about an all-forgiving God, he understands you sometimes have to be human."

"Accident?" The query slipped out before Sam knew.

Jerry slapped his leg but rather than the resounding clap of flesh against clothed flesh, it was a hollow thunk. Jerry rolled up the leg of his trousers, revealing a metal and silicon contraption beneath, "Almost as good as my old leg except for the fact it was a one-way ticket out of the military."

Sam couldn't hide a slight wince as the artificial leg was revealed, "How did it happen?"

"Ah," Jerry said, "This is where it truly shows that God has a slightly twisted sense of humour. Out on a tour in Cambodia, we were staying near this little town, clearing the place of landmines. There was a British troop of marines stationed nearby, challenged us to game of soccer, or football as they call it. We were eleven two down in the last ten minutes of play when I discovered the field wasn't quite as clear as we'd thought it was. I woke up in hospital a week later, not half the leg I used to have."

Sam wasn't quite sure what to say with the blasé way that Jerry rattled off the story, "And you aren't mad with God about that anymore?"

Jerry shrugged, "I got a bad hand but I think I've made something of it. I'm doing what I want to be doing."

Sam's eyes widened briefly in disbelief as his eyes skimmed the walls of the chapel and out into the still open hallway, "Really?"

Jerry's expression closed down, his eyes half-lidded for a moment before they opened once more, "Close enough."

Sometimes that was all you got. Sam shifted himself up to his feet, "Can I borrow your satellite phone? There are some calls I need to make."

---

When Sam found himself sitting next the satellite phone, he realised he wasn't sure who to call.

He could call Ellen and the Roadhouse. Ash and his Lego computer might be able to see some pattern that they'd missed or perhaps Ellen had heard a similar story from one of the hunters that made the Roadhouse a regular stop. The incident with Gordon Walker had soured Sam on 'Roadhouse connections' though.

He could call Missouri. He could hold the phone up to his brother's head and hope that somehow the psychic could reach down the phone and put right whatever had gone askew in there. More than likely the psychic would just tell him there was nothing she could do and those were words Sam didn't want to hear, at least not out loud.

He could call Joshua. The man was a mediocre hunter at best but he had an uncanny ability to always know someone who knew someone who could get you what you wanted, no matter what that thing was. Dean had refused to have anything to do with the hunter after the faith healer incident and Sam was too busy with the relief of having his brother back to argue.

Who Sam really wanted to call was Pastor Jim. Sam knew he could have rung up the man and said 'Mermaids stole Dean's brain' and then Pastor would just say something like 'right, let's see what we can do' in that calm, unshakeable manner of his, as rock-steady as the foundations of his church and faith. Sam could sit there with the phone crooked on his shoulder and his laptop while Pastor Jim did the same with the phone and his stack of dusty tomes, bouncing ideas back and forth until one stuck. Then Pastor Jim would just end the phone call with 'See you at thanksgiving' and let Sam get on with what needed to be done. Sam never made it to Blue Earth for thanksgiving but then, neither did Pastor Jim.

Sam knew who he had to call but it didn't stop his fingers from shaking a little as he tapped out the number. As he expected, there was no answer on the first ring. A long distance number unrecognised would likely go ignored. He dialled again.

"Singer's Car Repair." The voice on the other end was wary.

Sam steeled himself for his next words, "Hey Bobby, it's Sam."

He heard the sigh down the line, discordant over the long distance, "Sam? Why am I beginning to dread phone calls off you?"

"With good reason."

"Shit," The older hunter cursed and Sam could hear a scrabbling noise in the background followed by the click of a pen. "Right, what mess has Dean got himself into this time?" There was a weary note to the man's voice.

In that moment Sam wanted to hang up. The thing about Bobby was that no matter what you found, he tended to have already seen it, shot it and salted it. This also meant that if you were in deep shit, he'd be the first to tell you and part of Sam really didn't want to know. "We got this hunt off one of Dad's old marine buddies, set up his own cruise business and, well, what do you know about mermaids?" Sam said, trying to avoid saying anything outright.

"That the Hans Christian Anderson version was far better than the Disneyfied crap." Bobby quipped, "Standard facts. Half human, half fish. Lives underwater. British folklore says they are often omens or portents of bad things to come. So which one of you saw her?"

"Dean." Sam admitted.

"And now you are worried he'll do something stupid like throw himself off the back of the boat."

"Nope."

"Nope?" Sam heard the indrawn hiss of breath, "Tell me you ain't implying what I think you are implying, boy."

"If you think I'm implying that Dean already decided to jump off the back of a moving boat into freezing cold water then you are out of luck."

Sam discovered that contrary to expectations, there were some swear words he hadn't learnt yet, "How is he?" Neither did Sam miss the worried rasp in those three words.

"He was just fine and dandy, you know. Busted ribs, stopped breathing for a while, typical Thursday," Sam tried to keep up the mock-cheerful voice but found cracks spider-webbing through, "Doctor brought him back, patched him up good as new."

"And then?" Bobby said, voice filled with dread.

"He decided on an encore," Sam let the words sink in. "Fortunately this time I got there in time to stop him going over the side and just slammed him into the railing breaking his arm instead. In even better news, he's now practically catatonic except for moments when he starts screaming just at the sound of my voice or my footsteps in the room or, hell, just the sound of me breathing. So, Bobby, how do I fix this?"

"Sam, I gotta say something you ain't gonna like." Bobby rarely minced his words, even as fond of the Winchesters as he seemed to be so Sam was immediately nervous, "There's a chance that that some of this ain't something supernatural. Your brother has been riding on a knife's edge for a long time now, I don't think he'd need much of an excuse to fall."

"Dean wouldn't fall," Sam hissed. "He wouldn't leave me."

"I'm not saying he chose to, Sam, never that but there's a part of his brain that might've embraced the chance at a break and by the sounds of it, he's been through the wringer."

"Dean's been through the wringer for all twenty seven years of his life," Sam protested, "What the hell makes this different?"

"Why don't you tell me?" Bobby's tone was as loaded as the shotgun that was always in easy reach.

The drunken talk in that creepy doll motel flooded back into Sam's mind in technicolour clarity as did the realisation that there was no way in hell he would relate that to Bobby, even as much as he and Dean both trusted the guy, "I guess there has been a little more stress than normal," Sam hedged. "But I know Dean and he wouldn't just shut down."

"I understand that and I'm not saying that's the only option." Sam could hear the scratch of pen against paper as Bobby jotted notes, "Let's start at the beginning. You sure it was a mermaid?"

"Yeah," Sam answered, "Dean saw it 'bout three days before he jumped and I've seen it too."

"You've seen it too?" The anger in Bobby's voice did little to disguise the worry.

"But not in the same circumstances."

"In what circumstances did you see the mermaid?" Bobby asked, using his 'talking to a very slow child' voice.

"Well," Sam said and tried to straighten out the story in his mind, "After Dean went catatonic, I decided to go kill the mermaid." Sam could almost hear Bobby rolling his eyes, "I got some scuba-diving gear off Jerry and…"

"Wait a minute, who the hell is Jerry?"

"Oh, he was in the marines with Dad, owns the cruise line. He's the one that called me and Dean in 'bout a couple of mysterious deaths."

"Good guy?"

"Eh," Sam said, "He's not bad, he's just a bit…" Sam tried to find the right words for what it was about Jerry that just got his back up, "I know he means well and all but he's just a bit, I dunno, pushy."

"He's a normal wanting to be involved then," Bobby was dismissive of him and Sam felt a little protective of the guy.

"Not quite. He was a marine and he's got his heart in the right place."

"Don't count for nothing if something tries to rip it out," Bobby replied. "Sorry, continue with your story."

"I got the gear off Jerry and went diving, solo, refused to let Jerry tag along. It took a while of searching the water to find the mermaid but it seemed to try to speak to me, I didn't recognise the words though."

"Can you remember them?"

Sam tried to think and then recited as much as he could remember, trying to get the general sound if not the specific phrasing.

He could hear Bobby sounding out the words on the other end of the line, voice rising and falling as he tried difference cadences and inflexions to puzzle out the words, "It's all Greek to me."

Sam scowled, "Great help, Bobby. Thanks for nothing."

There was a long pause down the line. "Anyone told you you can be a grumpy sum'bitch sometimes?" Bobby asked. "It meant it sounds Greek to me," Bobby said after a while. "But it's garbled enough that I can barely make head or tail out of it. Just one word I know, that last one. Leepam-e means sorry, odd usage though. Most Greeks'd just say Signomi. Write down the rest phonetically, as much as you recall, until you think you have a fair approximation and I'll take a look."

Sam rubbed a hand back through his head, trying to cajole his scrambled thoughts into some sort of order, "Why the hell would the mermaid apologise to me?"

Sam could almost hear Bobby's shrug, "Maybe 'cos you ain't its target. That's not like most critters though. Most of them will take whatever meat crosses their path, ain't like them to be picky eaters. Tell me what happened after? Maybe I can get a better idea with the whole picture."

Sam nodded, relieved that he at least had a place to start, "So, the mermaid babbled at me then started freaking, it looked scared, got under my grip and grabbed me, starting hauling me up to the surface. I broke free." Sam paused to catch his breath for a moment, gulping in air in remembered relief, "There was something behind me, couldn't see what. It stopped the flow of oxygen and I couldn't breathe and then there was this… there was something and I was so dizzy, couldn't tell up from down from anything."

"Uh huh," Sam could hear the tension strained through Bobby's voice. "Then what?"

"The mermaid grabbed my wrist again and hauled me to the surface. Once up there, I swam like hell for the boat and that's pretty much that."

"Uh-huh," Bobby said and Sam could hear the rhythmic tapping of a pen against the phone, one of the more annoying habits Bobby had picked up from Dean, "Tell me more about the dizzy spell."

Trust Bobby to focus on Sam's moments of weakness, "Erm, what is there to say? I couldn't breathe, I got dizzy."

"Uh huh," Bobby said and Sam was really beginning to hate that sound. "Nothing else unusual about it?"

Sam forced himself to relive the moment, the panic of not being able to breathe, the swirl of the water around him and he frowned, "There was a pressure, like when a plane shifts altitude." There was silence on the other end, only the noise of the other hunter's breathing making Sam sure that he hadn't just hung up, "What is it, Bobby?"

"Probably nothing," Bobby said before adding. "Hopefully nothing. Look, has Dean said anything about music?"

"What?" Sam snapped. "My brother has quit responding to the world and you are worried about whether he rates Led Zeppelin over Metallica?"

"Quit being a damn fool," Bobby grouched, his physical presence somehow managing to reach through the line and tower over Sam, despite Sam's advantage in height. "Answer the question."

"No, Dean hasn't said anything about music." Sam knew he sounded petulant, "You suggesting I play Britney Spears and see if that snaps him out of it?"

"Quit acting like a child. You need to find out if Dean has mentioned anything about music to anyone, okay? Can you manage that?" Sam hated how Bobby could reduce him to a five year old and opened his mouth to tell him that but Bobby just spoke right over him, "What has Dean said?"

"Not much," Sam said, "He claimed he didn't remember anything after the first jump but oddly enough I don't think I believe him now. The second time, he just said 'It hurts, it's broken,' about his arm and then nothing but moans and screams since then."

Sam wasn't imagining the ragged breath that sounded on the edge of a sob and Sam fell silent, feeling he was intruding, as ridiculous as that seemed when it was his brother being discussed, "The thing he said, about it hurting and being broken, you sure that was about his arm?"

"I," Sam paused in thought, "I'm not sure. I just assumed it was seeing as I'd just broken his arm and I'm pretty sure it hurt."

"Okay, well, I'll look into this. Can I reach you back on this number?" Bobby's tone was at once brusque and business-like and Sam was at once suspicious.

"Bobby, what do you think this thing is?"

"I haven't got any concrete ideas yet, Sam." It was avoidance.

"Bobby," Sam said, impatience in his voice, "What do you think this thing is?"

"I'm not sure, Sam, and that's the honest truth." There was a pause down the line and a half-sigh, "But I think it's a siren."


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes and disclaimers in chapter one**

**A/N:**Thanks as always to my fabulous beta, TraSan, who writes utterly awesome fic. If you aren't already reading Envy, you should be!!

This is another slightly Dean-light segment, one of the hazards of writing a fic all at once before posting is you don't tend to notice pacing issues. Needless to say, plenty of Dean to come: I haven't handed in my Dean-girl badge even if Bad Day at Black Rock turned me Sam girl for the duration of the episode (But, come on, he lost his shoe!!)

Any and all reviews gratefully received, especially any constructive crit. It may not help with this fic but I'll be sure to take note of it for future projects.

* * *

A bubble of laughter forced its way up Sam's throat in the silence that followed Bobby's proclamation, "A siren? Seriously?" 

"You think I'd joke about that?" Bobby's tone was brisk, cutting off all future attempts at humour.

"No," Sam backstepped. "It's just… a Siren? First vampires are real and now sirens. Are there any folk tales that don't have an element of truth to them?"

"Haven't found a heffalump yet." Bobby said with such absolute sincerity that Sam gaped. Right up until the moment he heard a slightly forced chuckle down the other line, "Sorry. You wouldn't remember… John's face!"

"I wouldn't remember what?" Sam asked, feeling a little on edge by Bobby's rapid change of mood.

"Back when you were seven or eight and your Daddy dropped you and your brother off at mine again. Made the mistake of reading Winnie the Pooh to Dean and he went missing for four days hunting a heffalump." Sam added that to his mental list of 'Stuff to tease the hell out of Dean about once he's awake' list. "Claimed he caught one too. Dragged me all the way out to the nearby wood when he'd finally traipsed his way back. Of course, the heffalump corpse had mysteriously vanished by then."

Sam's barely suppressed snorts down the phone line obviously caught Bobby's attention as he mentioned, "The next night I caught Dean trying to sneak out again, with you this time, to go hunt another heffalump."

"I can't lose him, Bobby," Sam's voice came out a little choked. "Just tell me what I need to do and I'll do it."

"I wish it was that simple, Sam, I really do. It's just…" The silence on the other end of the phone line forewarned Sam that whatever Bobby was about to say he wouldn't like, "It's just that there are no reported survivors of a Siren attack, except for old Odysseus. There are people who survive the initial attack, sure, but most of them commit suicide a month later. This won't just be a case of offing the siren. If we're gonna do this, we need to make sure it sticks."

"Dean wouldn't fall prey to this, he's stronger than that."

"I know you got your brother up on some kind of pedestal but you need to face reality here." Bobby's voice was harsh and held an edge of irritation, "Imagine finding the most beautiful thing in the world and then having it taken away. That'll be what it'd be like for your brother if you take the Siren song away."

"I don't need to," Sam argued.

"Not belittling you and your girl, Sam, but there really isn't a comparison."

"We can sort out how to save Dean from himself later. We need to get rid of the Siren first. How did Odysseus do it?"

"Tied himself to the mast with the crew's ears stopped full of wax."

Sam frowned, "I don't think a luxury cruise with complimentary earplugs will be very popular. Anything else?"

"There's something I read once 'bout Orpheus coming up against a similar problem. They said that Orpheus played music so beautiful that the sailors would rather listen to it than the Siren song."

"Unfortunately, I don't think the onboard orchestra is up to scratch." Sam grumbled, "Maybe there's some Metallica tapes around."

"Quit thinking inside the box, kid. That ain't like you. It's all about getting something that Dean wants more than he wants to join the Siren," Bobby snorted.

Sam raked his mind for anything practical but found nothing.

His silence apparently registered to the older hunter and he could almost see Bobby rolling his eyes, "You are your own greatest weapon in this fight. Dean wants nothing more than to keep you safe, always has."

Guilt swelled up in Sam again at those words, "Why can't he just live for himself?"

Bobby snorted again and Sam had a nasty visual of a snot-covered receiver on the other end, "Do you really think now is a good time for a full psychological profile on your brother? Don't sound surprised, I do know some words longer than two syllables."

"I know, Bobby," Sam said, resigned. "I can't even get Dean to listen to me at the moment, not without him screaming in pain. That thing is inside his head, warping him."

"So use Odysseus strategy part one."

"How's tying myself to the boat going to work?"

"For crying out loud, Sam, you aren't five years old anymore, try listening to what I'm saying instead of just coming up with some smart remark. I meant the earplugs."

Sam blushed, very glad that Bobby couldn't actually see his expression, even though he knew the older man would almost certainly know what effect his reprimand would have on him. "Earplugs, I'm guessing we'll need very good ones."

"Definitely. If you can't hear the song, it's probably getting to Dean on some inaudible range. I could get hold of some but I've no idea how to get them out to the boat."

"Mr Harkley's wife snores." Sam exclaimed.

"That's great, Sam, but hardly relevant."

"Now who's making smart alec remarks." Sam was glad to turn Bobby's words back on him, "Apparently her snores are awful so he bought himself a top-notch pair of earplugs to block out the noise. I'll go ask him for them."

"Good thinking, Sam." Sam felt a warmth settle inside of him from the hard-won compliment, "I'll keep trying to find out whatever I can. Can I reach you back on this number?"

"Yeah. I'll tell Jerry to make sure any calls get through." Sam was reluctant to hang up, wishing that if he didn't, somehow Bobby would be able to make everything right. Every second on the phone was one that he wasn't helping out Dean though so Sam muttered, "See you around."

He hung up the phone hearing Bobby's reply of "Keep safe, both of you."

---

"Good afternoon, Mr Harkley." Sam had taken some time to shower and dress smartly before knocking on the door of the modest-sized cabin that housed Mr Harkley and his bigger-than-modest-sized wife.

"JB," Mr Harkley beamed toothily at Sam. "Haven't seen you out and about for a while. You still looking after poor ol' Mr Edenridge? These younger folks just don't have the same constitution." Mr Harkley slapped a palm on his protruding gut.

"Actually I was hoping to ask for a favour, seeing as you are such a reasonable gentleman." Sam raked his brain for all the knowledge he'd gained about Mr Harkley from Dan and others. He was a high-powered businessman but liked his reputation for being ethical: even if he just meant he was more sneaky about how he screwed everyone else over. "The doctors believe that the ship's motion may be making Mr Edenridge worse, some sort of ear imbalance. I'm afraid the medical jargon is over my head." Sam put on his slightly dim but ever so affable barman face, "They were wondering if it was possible than he could buy your earplugs. I hear they are top of the range."

"You know I'd do anything to help out, JB." The man clapped a big hand onto Sam's shoulder, "And I do feel sorry for the poor man but I just can't cope with my Janice's snoring without the earplugs."

Sam knew it wouldn't be that easy but he had foolishly allowed himself to hope. "The doctors really do think it will help out. I'm sure Mr Edenridge will happily compensate you over the amount they originally cost." Or rather Jerry would.

"That doesn't leave me with a pair of earplugs, does it?" Mr Harkley said, giving Sam another pat as if he was a particularly slow child. Sam wanted to use the patented Winchester approach: break into Mr Harkley's cabin in the middle of the night and steal them. That had two serious issues: One that he'd have to pull them out of Mr Harkley's ears and he was sure even as stealthy as Sam could be, the man would notice the sudden influx of sound. Second was that even if Sam succeeded, he was sure the man would have certain suspicions about who could have them and it would only take one visit to the infirmary for Mr Harkley to realise that Mr Edenridge wasn't just a little seasick.

"You are right." Sam said, hating the pretence. "What if we found you another pair of earplugs? I mean, they might not be as good but they'll certainly do for the rest of the cruise."

Mr Harkley just shook his head, "Sorry. It takes top of the line to block my Janice out. Love of my life, she is, but she could put a bull elephant to shame."

Sam was beginning to get the idea that Mr Harkley knew exactly what he wanted and was just leading Sam on 'til it was offered. The fact that Mr Harkley hadn't given him a concrete 'no' just helped that impression. There was a price and Sam hoped to God that he could meet it. "Is there anything we can offer you in compensation?"

"Well," Mr Harkley said, scratching a finger on the side of his nose as if this had just occurred to him. "My Janice doesn't tend to snore on silk sheets. Odd that."

That's all he wanted, Sam's mind muttered in amazement, "I'll talk to housekeeping and get them to send you some silk sheets." Sam immediately offered.

Mr Harkley shook his head, "Our mattress is a little rough too. If you put silk sheets on it, we'd only be able to feel the roughness more. Say," Mr Harkley said, looking up and clicking his fingers. "Doesn't Mr Edenridge's suite come with a silk-sheeted bed? I mean, it's not like the gentleman is using it."

Mr Edenridge's suite did indeed come with silk sheets… which Sam's brother had immediately stripped off the bed and dumped in a pile in the corner, complaining that they kept making him slide off the bed. Sam suspected his brother just thought they were too girly.

Sam wanted to offer Dean's suite up without hesitation but knew it was important to act like a barman really would. "I'd have to talk to the Captain. I don't know if I can just offer up another passenger's suite like that. How would Mr Edenridge feel once he's better?" Mr Edenridge wouldn't give a flying fuck unless Mr Harkley discovered some of the hidden weapons Dean had no doubt stowed about the place.

"It would only be until Mr Edenridge is better, of course, then I can have my earplugs back and my Janice's snoring won't bother me anymore." Mr Harkley was looking ever the reasonable business, "You can contact Jerry, of course, but I don't know how long I can remain so reasonable. You caught me in a good mood."

Sam knew the pretence couldn't put at risk Dean getting the earplugs so he made a show of thinking it over once more and said, "Well, I'm sure the Captain would do anything for one of his passengers. I'll talk to housekeeping about getting the suite cleaned out for you." Sam would go up there himself and remove all Dean's belongings. "I'll be sure to let you know when you can move in."

"I knew you were a sensible lad, JB." Mr Harkley clapped him on the shoulder again and Sam began to worry he was going to end up lopsided. "Just send someone to let me know and I'll hand over the earplugs."

Sam wanted to demand he hand over the earplugs now but instead he just smiled at Mr Harkley like he'd been done a great favour. "Thank you," He said and headed off to Dean's room.

---

Cleaning out Dean's room was one of the worst things that Sam had had to do for a while. It wasn't that Dean was a slob, anything but really. Their father's military habits had rubbed off most on the elder of the two Winchester siblings and Dean always wanted to have things exactly where he expected them to be. It made it easier for Sam to find the weapons stashed at various key points around the room.

It was just that always when they moved on from somewhere, it'd be both brothers bantering as they packed up their belongings and tried to work out whose the faded t-shirt found tucked behind the bed was. Dean would always insult Sam's taste in clothes and packing skills. Sam would retort by stealing Dean's clothes and hiding them. Dean was always rubbish at hide and seek when it came to inanimate objects. Even when Sam was just a kid, he could always find anything Dean hid within five minutes. Sam had always wondered how that could be when Dean would manage to find wherever Sam hid in about ten seconds flat.

Dean hadn't really unpacked much, just stowed a few outfits in the wardrobe and filled the bathroom with various hair products that Dean always denied he actually used. It took less than an hour to pack up everything Dean had brought with him into a couple of bags. Another hour until he'd straightened out the room, replaced the silk sheets on the bed and made the place look like it hadn't been inhabited since the cruise left harbour.

He nipped up to the Captain's office to drop off Dean's stuff in a safe hiding place and to inform him about the deal done with Mr Harkley before finally heading back down to Mr Harkley's room. Mr Harkley already had a bag in hand when Sam opened the door, a bag that was immediately passed over to Sam to carry along with several other pieces of luggage. Sam staggered under the weight up to Dean's old room and carefully arranged it on the floor.

Mr Harkley inspected every corner of the room and Sam would swear he was deliberately drawing this out. Sam was half-tempted to try to exorcise the guy except that demons rarely bothered with this low-level of evil. Finally Mr Harkley seemed satisfied with his new accommodations and handed over the small packet of earplugs.

Sam made brief small-talk and then set a fast pace down to the infirmary. He handed the earplugs over to Janey for cleaning and sterilisation. He wasn't looking forward to explaining to Dean that his new fashion accessories had most recently been seen in Mr Harkley's ears. Finally they were ready and Janey handed them into Sam's shaking hands, warning him that the change was unlikely to be instantaneous. In fact the sharp doctor seemed rather sceptical that they'd work at all.

Dean was unconscious when Sam walked into his brother's room and Sam made an effort to make as little noise as possible, worried that he'd wake his brother into a screaming fit again. Even so, Dean was curled up into a foetal position on the hand, white-knuckled grip, even in sleep, on the thin hospital sheets.

Sam carefully took out one of the earplugs and fitted it carefully into Dean's ear, pushing it in tight to make sure no noise could get through. Dean stirred a little but didn't wake yet.

The next bit was tricky as Dean's other ear was currently pressed into the pillow. Sam set his hands to lift his brother and manhandled him over onto his other side, cautious of the IVs jabbed into his arms and the restraints holding Dean to the bed. He held his breath the whole time, only letting out a breath once Dean was settled on his other side. He had to pause to let shaking hands settle for a while before inserting the second earplug in.

The second that the earplug was fitted fully into place, Dean's eyes snapped open and he jerked away from Sam, jerked hard enough that he would have fallen straight off the bed if it hadn't been for the restraints holding him in place. Sam gripped his brother's arms, mindful of the cast on the right. "It's alright, Dean. It's alright." He knew his brother couldn't hear him but he needed to say the words just to reassure himself.

Dean just twisted some more, his wide-open green eyes looking so lost that it hurt Sam just to look at him. He remembered Bobby's words about losing the most beautiful thing but it was another thing to actually see his brother suffering through it. "Sam?" His brother's voice was raw from screaming.

"I'm here, Dean." Sam couldn't stop using the useless words, just kept the weight of his hands on his brother's arms, even as Dean stopped struggling against him. "Calm down," He rubbed the arm gently, knowing it was one of the rare moments his brother would allow a comforting gesture.

"Sam, I can't hear anything." Dean's voice was pitched too loud and Sam realised what had spurred the panic. He took his hands away, prompting a 'squeak' that his brother would never confess to, and hastily retrieved a notepad from a nearby counter.

He scribbled 'You've got earplugs in' on the pad and held it up to his brother.

His brother blinked a couple of times at the words and then looked up to Sam, "I've got earplugs in?" He said, still too loud. "Why?"

Sam hastily scribbled 'To block out the Siren' just underneath where he'd previously written.

He regretted it as he saw the flash of remembrance pass over Dean's sleep-muzzied face. Dean twitched in the restraints again, "Got to get to her. I… No, stay here. I… God, Sammy, I almost… Sam, what the hell is happening to me?"

Sam didn't know what to write then, just played the pen across the paper, not making any marks. 'I'm trying to sort it out,' was all he could bring himself to write.

Dean shot him an annoyed look, "That's not helpful. Can we take out these ear plugs so I can talk to you like a normal person?"

Sam shook his head and scribbled down 'I take out the earplugs, you start screaming at the sound of my voice again.'

Dean smirked but it was lacking his usual humour, "Always told you the sound of your voice was annoying." Dean tried to bring his hands up to rub at his temple but was held back by the restraints again. "Can you at least take these damn things off?" He nodded, with a wince, to the ties around wrists and ankles.

Sam shook his head once again and wrote 'Not until we're sure the Siren song isn't affecting you anymore. I've spoken to Bobby and he's working on a more permanent solution.' Dean sulked but didn't push the point: a clearer sign than anything else that Dean knew he wasn't okay yet.

"I can't hear her, Sam." Dean said and there were a thousand emotions mixed together in his brother's voice: sadness and relief being the chief two, as opposite as that was.

'I believe you,' Sam wrote, punctuating his voice with a stab of the pen, 'But I can't risk a third time.' He didn't say that a third time he might not be able to pull his brother back from the brink.

"Guess we wait for Bobby." Dean concluded and Sam nodded, sitting back to silently watch his brother.

---

"So, he's more aware now?" Bobby's voice came clearly down the telephone line, a mixture of worry and relief.

"Yeah," Sam replied, "But he's still not quite Dean, there's something off."

"Well, that's to be expected. He's been through a heck of a lot," Sam got the feeling Bobby wasn't just talking about the encounter with the Siren. "At least the earplugs are working. How's he doing?"

"He's bored." Sam said, trusting Bobby to realise what that meant.

From Bobby's chuckle, he did. "Yeah, Dean bored is… Well…"

"It's hell," Sam said in a sullen voice. "Stop laughing, Bobby. It's not funny. I swear if he continues like this, we don't need to worry about him jumping off the back of the boat, I'll be pushing him." The words didn't sound as funny out loud as they had in Sam's mind.

"Your brother's scared, Sam. You know that's why he's acting like he is."

"How'm I supposed to reassure him? Dean, I'm fairly sure you will jump off the back of the boat the minute I think about removing the restraints and the earplugs but don't worry, I'm fairly sure you'll do it cheerfully."

"Ain't nobody going to be jumping off the backs of any boats." Bobby's voice was a soft, almost-snarl.

"You got something?" Sam asked hopefully.

"Possibly. You remember what I was saying 'bout Odysseus? Legends states that when ol' Odysseus passed by the Siren unharmed, they were so pissed that they threw themselves into the water and drowned. It sounds like your Siren has learnt to swim from your encounter but that doesn't mean she's turned entirely amphibious. I looked up maps of your location and there's an island not too distant, I'm betting that's the Siren's homebase."

"So, go there, salt and burn her in her sleep?"

"Not that simple, Sam. I'm pretty sure salting and burning won't work on her. She's an immortal, only her own suicide will kill her."

"Shall I tell her a very sad story?"

"Don't be an idiot, boy. It doesn't suit you," Bobby grouched down the phone line. "I was thinking more along the line of an equivalent suicide, of forcing the Siren into a situation she can't survive."

"Maybe I should see if Jerry had any C4 on board. We could blow up the island."

There was an amused huff of air on the other end, "I remember when you used to be the pacifist member of the Winchester household. I think you hung out with Caleb too long."

"Some things deserve to die," There was no humour in Sam's retort.

"Don't need to tell me that, boy." Bobby replied, his voice irritated sharpness. "I don't think you'll be able to blow up the whole island. You might be able to force the Siren off it though."

"How?"

"You'll need to attract its attention, get it off the island then go to the island and lay down some runes. You'll need some fairly specific ingredients: rosemary, sage, blood of a virgin and, most importantly, barberry."

"What the hell is barberry and, more importantly, how am I supposed to get my hands on any?"

"It's a shrub. You need the bark. Form a triangle of the wood at the cardinal points of the island and it'll block the Siren from getting back there."

"That still doesn't answer the question of how to get it." Sam said in frustration, "I mean, rosemary and sage will probably just mean a trip to the kitchen. Blood of a virgin should be easy enough if some of the gossip Dan told me about the passengers is right. But a shrubbery?"

"You know any of the passengers dabbling in the occult? There's bound to be a few among bored, rich folk. If not, you can probably use garlic. It's strong protective warding but I'm not sure it'll be strong enough for a Siren that's been around that long."

"What about Dean? What can I do to help him?"

"You have to get Dean to resist that thing, that'll help if he makes the choice of his own free will. That amulet of his should help out with that, I remember when John got me to find it after Dean got himself mushed up in another hunt. Get him to eat some garlic and mint."

"If I get him to eat garlic, you bet I'm getting him to eat mint afterwards."

Bobby snorted, "The mint should help gain mental strength in times of difficulty." There was a pause, "That and to offset the garlic."

"And if that doesn't work?" Sam asked.

"Then you finish off that Siren and you both come to me. Trust me, boy, I will find something that works." The assured determination in Bobby's voice was soothing and Sam found himself nodding in agreement even though the older hunter wouldn't see him.

"Will do, Bobby. Hopefully not have to see you soon."

"You boys can drop by when one of you ain't bleeding or dying, you know."

"And start giving you false expectations?"

"Take care of yourself and your brother. Tell him I'll smack his ass if he gives you any trouble."

Sam grinned, imagining what Dean's face would be like when he passed on that bit of knowledge. "Will do, Bobby. Thanks." He said and hung up.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes and disclaimers in chapter one**

**A/N:**This is a bit of a calm before the storm chapter, a bit of light relief. Hopefully you'll all still enjoy it and I promise that it's all action from next chapter on!

Thanks as ever to my wonderful beta, and fellow elbow appreciator, TraSan!

* * *

When Sam realised he needed information on the passengers, he knew there was only one person to see.

Finding him wasn't a challenge. The bar shifts were posted up on a board each morning so that anyone wanting to change their shift could easily consult the list and find someone to swap with. Sam's target wasn't on shift on that day so it wasn't difficult to work out where he'd be.

It was mid-afternoon when Sam walked in to the staff rec room. Dan was already there with his feet propped on the coffee table and some handheld game beeping in his hands while he tapped frantically away at the controls.

"Hey Dan," Sam called, walking casually over to settle into one of the comfy chairs.

"JB!" Dan grinned over to his friend and immediately closed up the game. "You finally broke free of the infirmary then. I thought 'Call me Nate' was going to hog your attention for the rest of the voyage."

Sam forced himself to smile, "Yeah. Me too. Even now, it's just a temporary release. I had to get out of there, you know. There's only so much rich person puke you can see."

"Eurgh, thanks for the visual, man." Dan crinkled up his nose. "You should talk to El Capitan about getting some other poor sucker to do it. You are wasted in there. Half the ladies on the cruise have been asking for you at the bar."

"And lose the massive tip I should be earning?" Sam snorted.

"True," Dan said, looking impressed. "I heard Natey-boy had one of the best suites in the place. He's got to be good for some serious green. Enough to put you into college and out the other end. You want a drink?" Dan stood and headed towards the drinks machine.

"Just a coke," Sam said, feeling a parch to his throat that had been ignored beneath the cacophony of other emotions clamouring for his attention. "So what gossip have I been missing?" Sam had long experience in wrangling a conversation over to occult matters though usually it was with people less sharp to manipulation than Dan.

"Most of the gossip is about your best buddy, Nathaniel. I swear he's got half the women on the boat lusting after him, you know the ones you aren't going gaa-gaa over you. If Janey wasn't so damn scary, there'd be a queue of women out there ready to give him the kiss of life."

Sam choked back a laugh, "Janey ain't that scary."

"Are you kidding? I had to go in there a couple of days back after I accidentally sliced my thumb cutting lemon slices." Dan held up the plaster-wrapped thumb, "She didn't stop lecturing me about it from the moment I walked in the door until the minute I finally escaped. When I asked if I could nip in and see you, she exploded! I got a twenty minute rant about patient privacy. Seriously, I think I was lucky to escape alive." Dan passed over the coke and settled back on the sofa, "You not sweet on her, are you?"

"No!" Sam hastily denied, "I guess I just spent a lot of time around her recently. She's cool."

"Hey, I'm not dissing her," Dan pointed out, holding his hands out in a defensive gesture and sloshing a little soda over the rim of the can onto the much-stained couch. "I heard all the Captain's stories about how she's saved his and others' butts from the line. She served in the military same as half the people aboard. It's no wonder she's a bit sharp round the edges. My Dad wanted me to follow him into the military but there's no fucking way I was going to do that. Biggest fight we ever had. I think he suggested this cruise in the hope I'd get a taste of the life and change my mind."

"Tell me about it. My Dad wanted me to follow in his footsteps too. Had a massive fight when I left for college."

"He push you for this job too?" Dan joked.

Sam shook his head, "No, he died. Six months ago, car crash." Sam hated the lie, hated saying his father died of something as banal as a car crash.

"Shit, man." Dan looked stunned, taking a long swig of his drink. "This a guilt thing then?"

"What?"

"You coming on this gig now 'cos it's what he would have wanted?"

"I…" Sam remembered his brother's words and shrugged. "I think so." He wasn't talking about the job that Dan thought he was but the truth still applied.

"To Dad's," Dan raised his can of cherry soda to 'clink,' "May they forever fuck us up and make us love them at the same time."

Sam found himself grinning along, "To Dad's." He took a mouthful of cold coke, "So come on, there has to be more gossip than just Nathaniel. I've had enough of him. Any of the passengers hooked up yet?"

"Nah, man. I had some serious bets down on who and how many your boy in the infirmary was gonna hook up with, cost me some serious cash when he got sick. I think the women are all saving themselves for him. Bunch of freaks. Did I tell you last cruise we had a woman casting a love spell in the middle of the bar area?"

'Damn it,' Sam thought. 'I'm on the wrong damn cruise.' "Seriously?"

"Completely. She was burning all kinds of weird shit and had a photo of one of the other passengers wrapped in a red ribbon. Captain confiscated it all as a fire risk."

'Finally something right,' Sam thought. 'As long as Jerry didn't toss it all overboard.' "Rich people are nuts."

"Yep but they tip well for the privilege of being nuts on a boat."

"Talking of nuts rich folk, I probably need to head back to Mr Edenridge again. Have to make sure Janey doesn't smother him with a pillow."

---

Sam didn't return to check in on Dean though as much as he wanted to. Instead he headed towards where he expected Jerry to be at this time of day. As he expected, he found the man in his office, squinting over paperwork. Sam made a formality of tapping on the door but walked straight in anyway.

"Sam," Jerry looked up with a smile. "What can I do for you?"

"Dan said you confiscated some supplies off a passenger on the last trip, a woman trying to do a faux-Wiccan love ritual."

Jerry frowned, "Yes. But I thought the critter causing problems didn't have anything to do with magic or I would have mentioned it."

Sam was tempted to give Jerry a lecture but his inner chiding voice told him he'd been giving Jerry a hard enough time as it was so he just said, "No, the ritual itself won't have caused any problems, even if it worked. I'll need some supplies to get rid of the Siren and there's a good chance there's some genuine useful ingredients amongst the rubbish."

"Anything you want is yours. I got them in here somewhere. I meant to chuck them out once we were back in dock except with all the drama of that man jumping off I never got around to it." Jerry frowned, "Now where did I put it?"

Sam not-so-subtly tapped his foot in increasing tempo, a technique which usually worked on Dean. He watched somewhat proudly as Jerry's searching sped up in time. Sam would have given himself a round of applause if it wouldn't be rather obvious. Eventually Jerry paused at one of the many boxes that formed an entirely separate wall in his office, "Ah, here we are." He tugged one down, managing by some minor miracle not to topple the rest. "All yours."

Sam took hold off the box and recoiling slightly from the pungent aromas emanating from the thin cardboard. "Mind if I take it with me? I don't think you want to explain to the staff why your office stinks of patchouli."

"Be glad for it to be gone," Jerry replied. "There's been a lingering odour in here for a while now."

Sam refrained from a retort about body odour, remembering that it wasn't Dean or Bobby he was talking to. "What do you want done with the stuff I don't want?"

"Toss it or keep it," Jerry stated casually. "Doesn't matter a whit to me."

---

Sam got some odd looks ferrying the overly fragrant box through the corridors but he gave them no heed. Worse case scenario he could make up a story about Mr Edenridge wanting to try aromatherapy: even if that destroyed any chance of Dean's cover image being considered macho ever again. Apparently everyone was used to some oddities though as no-one gave him more than a second glance and a rare crinkle of the nose.

Sam idly regretted having given Dean's room out so quickly as it would have been the perfect place to pore through the box. Instead he had to make do with setting the box on his bunk in the shared room and hoping his blankets wouldn't stink of pot pourri for the next week.

The first few finds at the top of the box was the usual sort of crap Sam'd expected a wannabe-Wiccan to tote around. A couple of pentagram necklaces, some scented jos sticks and a dark red candle, wick untouched. Next came the layer of little herb baggies that the woman had probably been convinced were mystical herbs and were far more likely to be crunched up leaves and some oregano.

Finally Sam hit jackpot at the bottom amongst the sticky residue of something that Sam really didn't want to think about. A couple of large bags contained pungent bark that Sam identified as matching the description of barberry. Most of the bag had been crushed to the point of uselessness for the ritual but Sam could see some long pieces which had been preserved. He laid out one of his t-shirts on the bed and methodically extracted the longest pieces. He would need twelve in all, three for each of the cardinal points, but it wouldn't harm to have some spare. He ended up with fourteen bits which definitely wasn't as big a safety margin as he'd wanted.

He wrapped them carefully in his t-shirt and then wrapped that t-shirt in another t-shirt. He wanted to wrap the two t-shirts in another t-shirt but he was swiftly running out of t-shirts unless he wanted to walk half-naked around deck.

A trip to the kitchen had Sam loaded down with enough rosemary, sage, garlic and mint to make a decent BBQ dressing for about thirty people, the latter two he had arranged to have mixed into all of Dean's food.

Blood of a virgin turned out to be a little more tricky.

---

"Excuse me, miss?" Sam had already had to wait thirty minutes for his target to detach herself from a crowd of croneys which had meant thirty minutes of listening to their banal conversation. He often teased his brother about being dumb but these passengers could make Dean look like a paid-up MENSA member. Truth be told, Sam suspected his brother wasn't half as dumb as Dean apparently wanted Sam to think.

"JD." The target glee'd at him, flashing teeth so white that her orthodontist must be a very rich man. Her plastic surgeon was also laughing in it judging by her nose and lips.

"JB," Sam politely corrected. "Dr Haydlebrook asked me to have a word with you. Mr Edenridge is suffering from a little anaemia and your medical records show that you are a perfect match for his blood type."

"Ooooh," The target said, a long drawn out sound with no evidence of any thought behind it. "Poor Mr Edenridge. It's not contagious, is it?"

'Only around vampires,' Sam mentally added. "The doctor doesn't think so. Mr Edenridge could use a blood transfusion in order to aid his recovery."

"Ooooh," The target made that noise again, the vapid hiss of air that was already making Sam's teeth grit together. She blinked mascara-darkened eye lashes at him repeatedly to the point where Sam wondered if that part of her anatomy was having its own epileptic seizure without inviting the rest of her body to the party. "Sooooo?" She asked.

"So Dr Haydlebrook was wondering if you would be willing to donate some blood. Unfortunately the ship can't carry a fully stocked blood bank and they used most that matched Mr Edenridge in an unfortunate incident in the kitchen with a vegetable peeler." It was all lies. Janey was a far wiser doctor than to short herself on a blood supply on a major cruise but Sam figured this girl was unlikely to be smart enough to tie her shoes in the morning, let alone figure that out.

"Ooooooh," The target said. Sam decided the noise wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't accompanied by a glistening pastel pink pout. "I would love to help but I really don't like needles."

Judging by the amount of botox it must have taken to achieve the taut skin on the human barbie's face, Sam found himself doubting that statement. "Oh, that's a shame," Sam said casually. "Only Mr Edenridge was saying he'd be so grateful if someone could help him out that he'd be sure to take that person out to dinner." Dean was going to kill him for this but as long as Dean was alive to kill him, Sam pretty much didn't care.

"Ooooh." Sam was beginning to wonder if that was a deliberate noise or whether the woman had some kind of strange lung deformity that created the sound whenever she inhaled to speak. "Gosh, Mr Edenridge. He is cute." Her eyelids fluttered rapidly again and Sam began to wonder if that was some indication of how much brain power she was using. It would certainly explain the lack of eyelash movement during most of the conversation. "How much blood would he need?"

Sam would have liked to drain the girl dry, just to avoid inflicting her on the rest of humanity. "Just a little, enough to perk him up a little." Pimping out his brother seemed oddly dirty. "You won't even notice it's gone." She was so dim you could probably chop off her head and she wouldn't notice for a day or so, probably not until she decided her sunglasses weren't sitting right anymore.

"Oooooh." Sam began reciting a mantra in his head. 'Dean needs this. Dean is your brother. You love your brother. Your brother is worth anything. Your brother is going to owe you big time for this.' He repeated it until the urge to beat the girl until her brain cells woke up subsided. "It won't hurt, will it?"

Sam shook his head, "Of course not. Dr Haydlebrook is the best there is." It probably would hurt a little but it was nothing compared to the headache her stupidity was giving Sam.

"Ooh." Sam began to wonder whether God was giving him a break as the irritating noise at least truncated itself, "And then Mr Edenridge will go on a date with me?"

"As soon as he is feeling better," Sam assured her. Maybe Dean wouldn't mind that much. I mean, she was blonde, stupid and a virgin: that had to be enough to stop Dean to killing Sam where he stood. Sam failed to convince even himself of that.

"Ooooooooooooooh." Sam revoked his faith in a generous and benevolent deity at the drawn-out sound. "Chop-chop, JD. Can't keep Mr Edenridge waiting."

---

Janey had glowered at Sam as soon as he had walked into the infirmary, vapid blonde in tow. "Libby here has agreed to donate some blood to aid Mr Edenridge's recovery. Isn't she generous?" Sam told the doctor, his smile clearly stating, 'I've had to put up with her for the past hour, your turn.'

Janey clattered the instrument she was holding down a little harder than necessary then made her way to the 'patient.' "Hi there, I'm Dr Haydlebrook."

"Ooooooooh." Libby said.

Janey arched an eyebrow over to Sam and there was a definite twitch in her cheek, "Have you given blood before?"

Libby paused and pursed her lips in thought as if that was the final question on 'Who wants to be a millionaire?' "I gave some clothes to the African orphans once. Those poor children were in a dire need of Versace."

The twitch in Janey's cheek became more pronounced and Sam added a name to the list of people he would need to apologise by the time this was over. "Well, blood donation is very similar." Janey lied. "You'll feel a little prick and then just relax for a while and I'll do all the work." She turned to Sam with a face like a thunderstorm, "JB, care to help me with preparations?" She motioned to the opposite corner of the room.

Sam slumped over, perfecting his puppy-dog stare on the way over.

"What. The. Hell?" Janey enunciated each word in a bitten-down angry tone, chewing straight through Sam's puppy-dog.

"We need the blood of a virgin." Sam explained, "It's a whole purity, anti-Siren thing."

Janey did a double-take and glanced back to the girl amusing herself by counting how many fingers she had. "And she's a…?"

"So reliable sources say," Sam said. He wasn't sure whether to believe it himself however she seemed to be the only shot according to Dan.

"Huh." Janey said, "How much do you need?"

"Not too much. Just need to dip the bullets in it."

"Dipping bullets in blood?" Janey said cheerfully, "Boy, your job must have all the best stories. Fine, I'll do this but you owe me, big time. I'll need to do an anaemia test on twiggy over there and if she fails it, there's nothing I can do."

Sam pondered the possibility of getting Mr Edenridge to take Libby out for several large steaks in order to up her iron count. Of course that would require explaining why Mr Edenridge was wearing earplugs. Then again, Sam wouldn't be surprised if most of Libby's dates had to resort to such devices. "That's fine."

Fortunately Libby turned out to have a high enough red blood cell count to justify the small amount of blood that Janey would need to extract. Sam stayed in the background for most of the procedure, getting some vicarious pleasure out of the hiss the blonde made as the needle was inserted. It was over quickly and Libby skipped out of the infirmary ordering JD to let her know when Mr Edenridge was up and about.

Sam now had all the supplies. All he needed was a distraction for the Siren to put the plan into action and the only solution he could come up with was the one he really didn't like.


	11. Chapter 11

**Disclaimer and notes in Chapter one**

**A/N:**Sorry for the wait between the last chapter and this one. I've been bombarded with work, planning the work Xmas do , computer troubles (PC and laptop taking it in turn), NaNoWriMo (Okay, that bit is fun), Muses trying to write the next long fic (Concentrate on NaNo, dagnabbit) and other things far less fun than Supernatural. Posting will be a little slow from here thanks to NaNo but I will try not to keep anyone waiting.

Oh, and I should probably mention some nasty things are said in this chapter but I promise you they are neither the opinion of the writer nor the character saying them. Is that cryptic enough?

Helping to keep me sane… well, at least socially functional is my utterly wonderful beta, TraSan, who, I think, has been writing great Sam fic for so long that she's now eerily psychic!

* * *

Dean was sitting up in his bed sulking when Sam entered the room. He brightened somewhat when he spotted Sam and waved his brother over. "I'm bored!" He exclaimed in the still-overly loud voice. Sam had tried to explain to his brother about talking quieter but suspected Dean had ignored him on purpose.

Sam waved a small hello and slumped down in the comfy chair next to Dean's bed. He cast an assessing eye over his brother. Dean was still too pale apart from the purple bruises showing on his face from where Sam had crashed him into the barrier. His lip was near bitten through and the uncasted wrist showed bruises and abrasions from his Siren-borne panic. His brother looked like shit basically and Sam hated what he was going to have to ask.

His hand shook a little as he scribbled words down onto paper then held the page up to Dean's line of sight. He saw the convulsive shudder and gripped a hand onto Dean's shoulder to try and reassure him.

"Only way?" Dean managed to make his voice quieter this time and Sam found himself wishing it would go back to being too loud. The soft, childlike tone didn't fit with the confident brother he was used to.

Sam nodded and hated himself for it.

"Do it." Dean gave his consent despite the shiver.

_We can wait. _Sam wrote on the paper. _Until you are stronger._

Dean shook his head as Sam knew he would. "Siren might pick 'nuther victim. Has to be now or soon. You got a plan?" Dean's green eyes reflected a level of absolute trust in Sam which scared him.

_Nah, thought I'd wing it._ Sam hastily scribbled.

Dean just glowered.

_I got a plan. It's inspired by something Bobby said._ Sam added.

Dean arched an eyebrow, "M'not sure if that's comforting or not. I think Bobby's still mad at me for that whole Tabasco in the beer thing."

_You knew what he used the beer to test for._ Sam stabbed the pen down into the page, all too aware of his own holy water-spiked beer experience.

"That's what made it funny." Dean protested. Sam just gave his brother a look which expressed what he wanted to say better than any words could. "Okay, fine. Wasn't really the right time. So, when we doing this?"

_Tonight?_ Sam scribbled. _Has to be once Janey is off-shift._

"Oh yeah, she'd schidz if she knew what we were up to." Dean frowned, "You told Jerry?"

_I'll leave a note_ Sam wrote dismissively.

Dean shot him a look, "Not good enough. It's his command whether we like it or not. The man has worried himself half to death over us already."

_He'll try to stop us._

Dean shrugged, "I didn't say we had to give him all the details. Just enough to know we are doing something tonight and that we might need some help."

Sam frowned. He hated it when Dean decided to be reasonable. _Fine._ He almost poked the pen through the paper. _I'll go tell him now._ With that, he stomped a little more than necessary out of the room, clomping into the floor what he couldn't take out on his brother.

---

It was midnight when Sam snuck back into Dean's room, he could tell by the pace of the rise and fall of Dean's chest that his brother wasn't really asleep. He laid a hand on his brother's arm, feeling the jerk of muscles as Dean's gaze sought out his brother in the darkened room.

"Ready?" Dean's voice was a hiss barely audible.

Sam wanted to say no, wanted to come up with a thousand different ways to back out but he knew that his research had stalled and there was no other option so he just nodded, hoping his brother could pick up the motion. Nimble fingers went to the binding restraints, unfastening each in turn and wincing at the ring of bruises and abrasions revealed beneath the leather.

Dean's good arm immediately moved up to the nearest earplug but Sam gripped them in a sturdy hold, shaking his head. 'Not yet,' he mouthed silent words, hoping Dean could pick up their meaning.

Dean nodded and dropped his gaze, settling on stretching his previously confined limbs. Finally Dean shifted himself on the edge of the bed and pushed himself off to his feet. Almost immediately he started to fall and Sam had to hastily move to support his brother before he clattered to the ground.

"Oops." Dean stated and attempted to straighten himself up, using his brother as an erstwhile walking stick. "Just getting the hang of this walking thing."

"This is a bad idea," Sam spoke without thinking, "We should just wait a few days. The Siren won't…" He felt a sharp dig in his ribs and turned to face his brother who gave him an irritated look then tapped his ears. "Sorry, Dean." He made sure to over-enunciate the words so Dean had a chance at half-assed lip-reading.

Dean patted his arm which he figured was a silent form of forgiveness. Either that or Dean's night-vision hadn't adjusted yet and he was just a bit lost. "Where we going?"

Sam longed for his nice simple pen and paper instead of this complicated form of charades, made especially difficult when he was currently supporting his brother's weight. In the end he just motioned for Dean to follow him, figuring that was simpler in the long run. Fortunately both boys had been taught military hand signals from a young age, their father figuring it would come in handy on hunts where you didn't really want to give your position away to anything that might be listening in.

Dean acquiesced though the expression on his face said that he wasn't really happy about it. Sam led him down the corridor, keeping a cautious ear out for the sounds of anyone else moving around this late at night. Sam's room would be occupied at this hour so Sam led his brother into the staff common room, hypothesising correctly that it would be empty. Most staff would be either asleep or at work at this hour.

Sam turned the key in the door, locking the room behind him as the two brothers entered. Jerry had given him a skeleton key to most of the rooms onboard just in case they needed it. Dean motioned to take out his earplugs again and Sam shook his head, fishing a pen and paper out again scratching _Not yet, Talk first, _on the paper.

Dean shrugged and sunk into one of the comfy sofas set up around a low table. "Does it matter? Once these earplugs are out, it's pretty much going to be onus on you." Sam wasn't fooled by Dean's blasé manner.

_Not true._ He wrote. _You have to stand up to her._

Dean blinked at his brother, "You kidding? That's the plan? Sam, you remember me jumping off the back of the boat, right? Don't you think if I could've stopped, I would've?"

_Weren't ready._ Sam wrote, an unsteady jitter in his arm making the words more untidy than normal._Better now. Been dosing you with garlic + mint to help._

"Damn, knew my food tasted weird. I figured it was just one of those 'everything tastes weird when you are ill' things." Dean interlaced his fingers and tapped his thumbs together. "So I just need to try not to kill myself and it'll piss her off?"

_Sort of._ Sam said. _Can't tell full plan 'cos she gets in your head._

"Don't need to tell me that." Dean wrinkled his nose in distaste, "So, time now?" He asked, thumb tapping increasing.

Sam wanted to say no. He wanted to fall back on plan B and run to Bobby with his tail between his legs and look to the older man for the solution but he knew that wasn't the right plan so he just nodded.

Sam had had a plan. That flew straight out of the window the minute his brother tentatively removed the first earplug and promptly crashed onto his side on the sofa, hands coming up to clutch at his head on the verge of screaming. Sam yanked the earplug from his brother's clawed hand and slotted it back into his brother's ear.

The relief wasn't immediate. Dean continued to cradle his head in his heads, breath coming in hitched half-sobs and his body twitching in remembered pain. Sam was too afraid to touch him so he just hovered restlessly, waiting for a sign that Dean was okay, that Sam hadn't screwed this all up.

"She was mad," Dean choked the words out, panting in gradually steadying breaths of air, "She'll take someone else tonight if I don't… We've got to do this."

Sam shook his head in denial, pushing a hand under Dean's chin to force him to face Sam. "No," he mouthed.

"Sam," Dean said, the effect of his irritated tone lessened by the pain still evident in it. "You know she'll do it. You know she can do it. Do you think any of these rich idiots have a chance of standing up against her? I don't!"

Sam shook his head again. "No." He mouthed, building a fort of determination to steel himself.

Tears leaked out of the corners of eyes squeezed shut against the pain and then Dean opened his eyes again, Sam's determination meeting its match in hazel-green, "I can do this. Just took me by surprise is all. I'll be ready this time."

Sam could almost see the cracks in his fort appearing, the web of lines that were just waiting for correct pressure to be applied. "No." He denied the third time.

"Sam, I can't…" His brother's voice choked off again and a shudder ran the length of his curled body, "She's still in my head even when she isn't. I still want to go to her. God, so much! Sam, I can't live like this."

The cracks expanded and faltered and Sam's little fort tumbled down, showering him in the debris. "Dean, I…" Sam rushed to try and marshal his scattered thoughts into a coherent argument, "Okay, fine." He nodded before grabbing the pen and paper that had been tossed aside and scribbling _I am not losing you!_ That was one thing he didn't want his brother 'mis-hearing.'

"Sam, stop turning into a girl every time I don't keep my eye on you." Sam knew that was just Dean's way of saying 'me either.' "Ready?" Dean didn't bother to answer before he pulled both earplugs out at once and flung them across the room in opposite directions before Sam could react.

Sam glowered at his brother, a glower which immediately faltered at the pain dancing on his brother's face. Dean appeared to be holding some sort of mumbled conversation which mostly consisted of the words 'No' and 'Sorry' repeated at far too frequent intervals.

"Dean," Sam said in a half-whisper, flinching as the words took instantaneous effect on Dean, the pained jaw clench twisting into a rictus. What Sam wasn't ready for was the fist that came flying out of nowhere. As such it caught him squarely on the jaw and Sam tumbled from his unsteady pose hovering over Dean. Posterior met carpeted floor but not for long as Sam sprung spryly to his feet in order to place himself between the now standing Dean and the door.

"Sam, move." Dean's voice was harsh and had none of the teasing warmth that Sam was used to hearing. "She needs me."

"She doesn't need you," Sam spat the words like weapons at his brother, watching as each one hit. "Come on, Dean. You can withstand her."

Dean laughed, a thrown back chuckle that almost resonated within the walls of the place, "Sammy." The nickname was said without affection, "You don't get it. I don't want to withstand her."

"Yes, you do." Sam shifted in the defensive position his brother had taught him all those years ago, weight distributed evenly on either leg, centre of gravity low to the ground. "Is Dean Winchester really going to be pushed around by a girl?"

"God, sometimes I forget how much of a child you are. Little Sammy still peeking out from underneath his blankets at the world and thinking he knows what's going on." Sam discovered that it wasn't necessary to have a Siren in your head for words to hurt. "She's not a girl, she's not a woman. She Is."

"She's a monster, Dean. Same thing as we hunt around three hundred and sixty four out of three hundred and sixty five days a year." Sam tried to reason with the oncoming storm that resided within the shell of Dean Winchester.

"Is it hard to get out of bed that ignorant?" Dean said, dancing to Sam's left side to try and get past his brother. Sam grappled onto him with a large hand, gripping hard enough to bruise and shifting his weight in order to push his brother backwards. "Smart little Sammy. Smart enough to go to college. Smart enough to run away from the truth he couldn't cope with and find a bigger blanket to hide under."

Dean twisted again in Sam's grip, bringing a sharp elbow into Sam's ribs before dropping his weight, forcing Sam's arm to try and support his dead weight and trying to form a sliding tackle between the gap of Sam's legs. "Dean, this isn't you. You know it isn't. Come on, you can fight this thing." Sam brought his feet together and then got a two-handed grip on his brother's shoulders, pulling him up to standing once more before shifting his hand down to his brother's chest to shoving him backwards, resuming his own fighting stance as soon as possible.

Dean stumbled for two steps but whatever the Siren was doing, it didn't seem to be inhibiting Dean in any way. Fighting his brother was just as difficult as it would be if Dean was at the top of his game. They'd been mostly evenly matched in childhood though Sam had always wondered if his brother was holding back. Now that he was facing an injured and worn Dean who was still putting up one helluva fight, Sam was sure his brother had held back.

"How many times do I have to tell you, Sammy?" Dean said, his sharp green gaze taking in every nuance of the situation facing him, "I don't want to. You ever thought that dealing with you and your never-ending whining—your whole 'Dad is dead and I'm guilty, the demon made me evil, boo hoo my girlfriend is dead'—would make me want to throw myself off a boat just to get away?"

Sam tried to steel himself, to convince himself that it wasn't really how Dean felt, it was just the Siren warping and twisting him. Suddenly he wondered how Dean had felt after Roosevelt-fucking-asylum and the words Sam had tossed at him then.

"Damn it, I'm so fucking tired." It was that phrase, so utterly Dean that Sam believed it was true that came closest to breaking Sam.

It was that moment that Dean chose, darting towards the right. Sam moved effortlessly to block him only to find a quick dart past was never in Dean's plan. Can't go under it, Can't go over it, Have to go through it. Dean's fist slammed upwards into Sam's jaw and Sam felt himself tilting backwards, the black edges consuming his vision.

The last thought that run through his mind was that it didn't hurt as much as it should have and the hope that there was enough of his brother left in there to pull the blow.

---

Sam awoke to questions rattling around his mind. The first question was, 'Where am I?' The pressure pushing against various points of his body informed him that, 'The floor,' was the obvious answer. The next question was, 'What floor?' The scratchy sensation against his cheek spoke of carpeting but not as plush as that found in most areas the guests were privy too. The cracking open of eyes revealed a spiral mix of blue and green which means the staff rec room. Those questions answered, Sam's brain pondered seeping back into the comfortable dark except that a nagging sensation told him he had somewhere to be or somewhere not to be or that there was somewhere someone shouldn't be.

The final question of 'Why am I lying on the rec room floor?' resounding like a shotgun crack through his body and the simple answer, "Dean!" set a fire along each and every nerve. Sam lurched up unsteadily and made his way to the unlocked door. He frowned at it for a moment before checking his pocket for the skeleton key: it wasn't there anymore.

"Damn it, Dean." He glanced up to the clock on the wall, relieved to find that he'd only been out for a couple of minutes. He staggered down the hallway, pausing to lean against a wall to try and clear the thumping of his head. Probable concussion, his brain helpfully supplied. Fuck off and die, he retorted.

He let his feet lead the way towards the open deck, the rest of his body trailing behind in a numbness of, 'Can't be too late. Can't be too late. Can't be too late.' He clambered up the metal steps, almost losing his footing on the salt-wet steps. There, silhouetted by the deck lights against the railing at the side of the boat, was Dean.

Sam had had ample time in the journey from the rec room to deck to berate himself for the hideous SNAFU that his cunning plan had become. Bobby gave me an idea, Sam had told Dean but Sam hadn't really listened, had neglected the route that Bobby had laid out for him. Sam wasn't going to make that mistake twice.

He stopped a fair distance away from Dean, ready to lurch forward and throw himself over after his brother if Dean showed sign of vaulting the railings. Just the fact that Dean hadn't gone over yet spurred hope in Sam, even if he knew that if Dean went over this time, still weakened from his last swimming trip, Sam would pull a body, not a brother, out of the water.

"Dean," He said softly, not expecting and not receiving any acknowledgment from his brother. "Dean, you can't leave me." That got a reaction though just a flinch that could have equally been a reaction to the words as to their content. "I need you, Dean." That time Sam was sure Dean's flinch belonged entirely to him.

"How'm I supposed to cope without my big brother, eh?" Sam knew his brother would be killing him for a chick-flick moment if he weren't currently hell-bent on killing himself. Sam didn't much care: if he had to rip out his heart and slam it still bleeding down on the deck to get his brother away from the drop then he would. "You go over, I'm going over after you and you know, I think you gave me got a concussion. How well do you think concussions and swimming go?"

Dean wavered away from the railing but apparently the Siren wasn't having that as he immediately swayed closer again, clinging onto the railing so tight that Sam swore he could see the bone-white knuckles even through the dark.

"Of course, if I survive the drop then there's still the demon to go after." Sam said, trying to keep his tone level, trying to stop his body from dashing over to Dean and pulling him away like he wanted to. "But I can take it, right? Without my brother there to watch my back and keep me from doing something stupid?"

Dean wavered towards Sam once more and Sam could almost see the tenuous thread connecting him and Dean, connecting the Siren and Dean, the push and pull as Sam tried to haul with all the strength he had to get his brother back to him. This time when the Siren's countermove came, it didn't seem as strong.

"So in this fantasy world where I survive the drop and kill the demon, there's still the rest of my life to contend with and, you know, it looks too big. I can't go back to normal or Hendrickson will find me. I don't think he'll accept the excuse of 'my idiot brother threw himself off a boat,' do you? I'm sure I'd do fine in jail without my brother shadowing each of my footsteps though."

There was the slightly tilt of Dean's head to signify that Dean almost looked around at Sam and Sam's heart surged up into his throat and he pulled out all the stops.

"Dean, I need you. You're my brother and I love you. I don't think I can live without you and I don't want to. Please, Dean, I need you." He did nothing to draw back the desperation in his voice and this time Dean's head turned and damp features glanced across at Sam. For a moment there was nothing except eyes that couldn't see each other meeting across a distant and then there was an almost audible snap as the thread between the Siren and Dean was broken and Dean tumbled down to the deck.

Sam dashed across the deck to the soundtrack of the Siren's screams and crashed to his knees next to his crumpled brother, "Dean." He grabbed cold arms, careful of Dean's cast and chafed warmth into them in fumbling efforts to reassure himself that the Dean in front of him wasn't a figment.

"Sam," Dean croaked, "Oh god, I almost…"

"Shush," Sam grappled his trembling brother, pulling him against Sam's chest, willing his own body heat into the exhausted frame of his big brother, "It's alright. I got you. You aren't going anywhere." Sam knew he should move, that there was work still to be done but for the moment he let himself enjoy the weight of his living brother against him and the pained shrieks of the Siren.

* * *

A/N: Don't worry, that's not the end. There's still the Siren to deal with! Hopefully this chapter made up for the slight sloth of the last few! Don't be afraid to drop me a review and say what you think if it didn't. It may not help the pace of this fic but it's certainly stuff to take in mind for the next! 


	12. Chapter 12

**Disclaimer and notes in Chapter one**

**A/N:**Heya, I know I said I'd try to be more regular with updates but I didn't count on my laptop informing me it had always wanted to be a paperweight. After some percussive maintenance (and restoring everything to factory defaults) I've managed to get it back to working status but I need to re-install everything I use! Bah. Either way, sorry for lateness. Am here now.

Thanks as ever go to my ever-wonderful beta, TraSan, even if I sometimes worry we're gonna end up merging into one person!

* * *

It was with reluctance that Sam drew himself back from his brother and shifted his hands beneath shaking shoulders to haul him up to his feet. "Come on, Dean. We need to get going. We've still got stuff to do." Dean's weight sagged against him as if his brother had forgotten how to walk. Sam tried to think of a way to execute the plan without involving his quasi-comatose brother but knew what he'd said moments before was true: He needed Dean.

"Just a little longer, Dean, then you can rest." He coaxed his brother, "Come on. We need to do this before the Siren has a chance to recover."

That snapped Dean back into a semblance of awareness. "What we doing, Sammy?" His words were sleep slurred and would have been incomprehensible to anyone who hadn't grown up with early morning Dean as a second language.

"Bobby gave me some rituals to use on the Siren to block it off from returning to its island. The bitch'll drown. I stowed the stuff into one of the boats earlier." Sam led his brother down the deck to the covered boat already waiting in the lift. He tugged the cover off and half-shoved his brother into the boat, draping one of the blankets he was glad he'd had the foresight to pack over him. "I can do the ritual stuff but I need you on guard to shoot her if she gets too close."

"Saving people, hunting things." Dean murmured what Sam assumed was his agreement.

Sam cranked the handle and waited as the lift lowered the boat down into the waiting water. He scanned for any sign of the Siren but judging by the shrieks shrilling into Sam's skull, she was still a fair way off and suffering. Sam used the time to reach into the non-herbal bag he'd packed, pulling out a pair of handguns and a shotgun which he pressed into his brother's numb hands. "Take these. Got plenty of bullets here."

Dean's hands gripped the shotgun in habitual ease and then a hand plucked a couple of shells from the ammunition, cocking the rifle and loading them in, "Sam, bullets sticky." He complained, wiping his fingers off on his shirt.

"Um, yeah." Sam felt a blush warming him against the night air. "They're kinda dippedinvirginblood."

"Wuh?" Dean intelligently questioned.

"Sirens kinda use sex magic a bit like succubi and incubi. Virgin's blood is kinda anti-sex."

"Auntie sex is nasty." Dean agreed.

The boat settled into the water and Sam detached the cables then pulled up the oars, clicking them into place. Finally he checked compass bearings and set out towards where Bobby had said the island was, rowing for all that he was worth. He saw Dean scanning the water line for any sign that the Siren had broken out of her daze and was following them. Then he saw Dean's chin start to fold down to his chest. Sam pulled back hard on the oars, propelling the boat forward and used the moment's grace to kick at his brother, worry transmuting into violence. "Dean, stay awake."

"M'awake." Dean mumbled dozily, "Just resting my eyes."

"You were not." Sam snapped. "Come on. Just watch the water. Please, Dean, for me."

"The little brother card's gonna run out soon." Dean mumbled but he sat up a little straighter in his slump and Sam could see his head swivel from side to side.

Dean's head started to dip again and Sam was just beginning to wonder whether putting a loaded weapon into his zoned brother's hands was really one of the best ideas he had. Before Sam could ponder it much further, a flurry of bubbles announced the impending arrival of the Siren. Dean swung the rifle around on automatic and fired a single, perfect shot into the surf. There was a horrific screech that jangled Sam's nerves and Sam pumped harder at the oars to clear the distance between them and her.

"Nobody calls my brother you bitch and gets chocolate!" Dean yelled at the receding bubbles and Sam re-thought the Dean plus gun plan once more.

"You tell 'em, Dean." Sam murmured and kept up the rhythm of moving the boat once more.

Another rush of bubbles and another shot sent the Siren off again and Dean was looking quite pleased with himself as he reloaded the shotgun. In fact, he was humming to himself. That wouldn't have been so unusual. Sam was well-used to Dean's musical tendencies in times of stress. The fact that Dean was humming 'It's a small world after all' though had Sam concerned that his brother has finally gone over the edge. "Dean?"

"Yuh?"

"You are humming."

"Yuh."

"You are humming 'It's a small world after all.'"

"Yuh."

Sam ran out of words there which was still an improvement on his usually talkative brother who seemed to run out of words at the start of the conversation. Unfortunately the lack of conversation lead to Dean's beginning to nod off again and Sam had to plant another kick on his already bruised brother. "Come on, Dean. Stay awake."

"M'awake. S'just the cabbages talking." Dean mumbled and yeah, Sam was beginning to worry whether the Siren had scrambled something up there. Not that Dean was ever the poster child for sanity but humming a fucking Disney tune and talking about cabbages was one step beyond even Dean's level of weirdness.

Sam's arms were burning from the effort of propelling the boat forward and Sam was internally cursing Bobby. The island was close? Didn't feel very fucking close right now. He was in a race he was sure to lose if this went on for too long. The Siren had the advantage in the water as she'd all too ably demonstrated in their last encounter. All Sam had was a punch-drunk brother and a plan as feeble as the planks of wood keeping himself and his brother from the briny deep.

"S'big rock." Dean mumbled and the words were some of the sweetest that Sam had heard in a long time. He pulled harder against the oars, using whatever reserves of energy he had to try and make it those last few metres towards the island. "Crunchy," was all the warning Sam got before the boat crashed into the rocks at the end of the island.

Sam quickly checked their craft for any damage, breathing a sigh of relief when there wasn't any. He half-tugged, half-hauled his brother out of the rocking craft, depositing him on the shore with the shotgun. Sam snagged his bag of ritual supplies and hopped off, tying the lead rope on the boat off to a nearby outcrop.

Dean was asleep again when Sam made his way over and Sam shoved a foot into Dean's ribs. Dean just wrapped his hands around Sam's ankle and shifted his head around to rest on top of Sam's shoe as if that was the most comfortable pillow around which, compared to the rock, it probably was.

Sam pulled his foot rapidly back and Dean's head clunked audibly against the rock, prompting an soft whine. Sam crouched down to shake his brother, "Dean, stay awake. I mean it! I need to get on with the ritual. Just, stay awake and wait for the Siren. I need you to watch this point while I go block off the rest. Can you do that, Dean?"

Dean's hand scrabbled for the shotgun at his side, cracking it open and checking both barrels. "Fill Siren fulla blood. Gorrit Sammy. Go, ritual." It wasn't exactly comforting that that was the most coherent Dean had been for a while.

Sam weighed up his options but quickly realised that taking Dean with him wasn't one of them. He'd have to trust his brother to keep the Siren away which, usually, wasn't an issue but then Dean could usually hold on 'til the motel room before crashing from his injuries. "Good boy." Sam said and slung the bag over his aching shoulder and running as fast as his legs could carry him towards the nearest of the cardinal points.

Fortunately the island that the Siren had chosen for a home base was fairly small and it didn't take Sam that long to reach the first site. He unwrapped the t-shirt bundle and extracted three pieces of barberry, glad that they had all survived the rocky boat voyage. He laid them out with the first piece running in a line from sea to shore and the other two across it reciting, "Now you will be barred by faith, hope and charity." He spread a circle of sage and rosemary around the symbol and then tucked everything away in his bag and raced on to the next stop.

The crack of a gunshot had Sam wanting to turn and race back to his brother. At least this was a sign that Dean was still awake, even if it was awake and in trouble or awake and shooting at hallucinations: Sam wasn't entirely sure which option he would prefer. The next cardinal point was the furthest away from Dean and Sam comforted himself with the fact he would at least be on the homeward stretch now.

He repeated the ritual at that point, keeping an eye peeled for any sign that the Siren was trying to be sneaky and avoid Dean's sentinel post. Fortunately it seemed that the Siren had it all going on in her voice and not much from upwards of there. Sam tracked around to the last point, his legs screaming at him that they really didn't deserve this and his shoulders pointed out that they were much worse off. His whole body was just around ready to stage a revolt if it wasn't already tired beyond the energy to protest.

His hands shook from exhaustion as he laid down the barberry again, reciting the words tonelessly as his eyes scoured the sea for the Siren. Another gunshot crack split the silent salt-stained air and Sam hurried his hands in adding the rosemary and sage circle, forcing himself to pack the supplies in carefully for the trip back to Dean. He forced himself to the fastest run he could manage, promising his body that he could crash and burn once he reached his brother.

He reached the shore again just in time to see Dean level the shotgun at a dark shape in the water and pull back the trigger. Nothing happened. Well, that's not strictly true. The shotgun did nothing however the shape surged out of the water heading straight for Sam's prone brother and Sam got his first look at the creature that had caused all the trouble.

Unlike the mermaid, the Siren was bird-like in aspect with aquamarine-tinged black features for hair and sharp features from a curving nose to black-red thin lips. Her eyes were cinder dark and framed by long blue-black lashes.

Sam observed this in the moments it took to pull the gun from where he'd holstered it at his hip, pull it into the steadiest two-handed grip that he could and fire. The bullet struck the Siren in the shoulder and she recoiled with a hideous screech that sounded a thousand times worse without the muffling of the water. Sam could make out his brother struggling between reloading his rifle and curling into a ball. Sam chambered the next bullet and fired again, the bullet striking the Siren in the chest this time. It recoiled further backwards but didn't give up the shore for the water yet.

Sam made it over to his brother's side in five long strides and yanked him one-handedly backwards by the back of his hospital t-shirt, not caring if he scraped or harmed his brother in the effort, just wanting him as far back from the water as possible. Dean gave his brother a wide-eyed surprise look that held a touch of hurt in it, a clearer sign than anything that Dean still wasn't quite with it. As if forgetting to reload the damn gun hadn't been clear enough.

With the other hand, Sam kept the aim locked on the Siren who was tilted her head from side to side, assessing the situation in front of her. Sam carefully shifted his bag to his front, knowing that he would need to move fast to stop the Siren realising what he was doing. As quickly as possible, he fired another couple of shots at the Siren and while it was still hissing in pain and backing into the water line, he pulled out the necessary supplies and crouched as close to the shore as he was willing to risk, hastily placing down the supplies and rapid-talking to the lines. He was just adding the last piece of barberry when he felt the shadow looming and looked up to see the Siren standing over him with talon-clawed hands out-stretched.

Sam knew it was too late to reach for his gun so he just tried to tuck his too-big frame as small as it was to leave as little exposed skin as possible. He felt a scrape of talons across his shoulder, burning tears carved into his flesh. Before it could attack again, there was a whipcrack snap and another scream from the Siren, sending her surging back into the water. Sam glanced at the crunched barberry in his hand and tossed it aside, grasping another piece out of the wrapping and laying it down, reciting the third line of the ritual. His hand shook as he made the circle and finally retreated up the shore, hoping to God that it worked.

Dean was sitting dazed with the shotgun still in on hand and pointed loosely at the shore. Glassy eyes met Sam's gaze. "No Sam for bitch," He informed his brother.

Sam sunk down next to his brother, resisting the temptation to pillow into his brother as he had when he was younger. "You tell her." He said.

Dean nodded, rather proud of himself and kept scanning the water, "What now?"

"Now?" Sam said tiredly, rotating his shoulder slowly to assess the damage done from the Siren's talons, "We wait for the bitch to drown."

Dean's head thunked onto Sam's undamaged but still sore shoulder, "Wanna go home and sleep."

Sam raised a hand up, wincing at the jolt of pain, to pat his brother in a feeble gesture of comfort, "I know, Dean. We can't go out into the water again. Not while the Siren is still alive. She'd go after the boat."

"Boat still in the water." Dean murmured and Sam took a moment to process those words before realising his brother was right. He lurched up to his feet, ignoring the screaming of his muscles and the way Dean toppled onto his side with a confused "Mrph?" noise, and dashed down to the boat, intending to grab the rope and haul it onto land. He was moments too late as the Siren rose out of the water, anger darkening her features as she grabbed the wooden boat and tugged it backwards, the traitorous lead rope giving way to the onslaught and being drawn outwards.

Sam watched with a sinking heart as the Siren scrambled up into safety then did the only thing he could think of. He snatched the shotgun out of Dean's hands, took aim at the boat and blasted a hole into the side. He reloaded as fast as he could and added two more holes into the wood.

The Siren squawked in anger and scrambled out of the wooden craft as the boat sunk into the depths.

Sam forced himself back up to his brother and sat back down on the cold rock, lifting Dean up gently so his brother could use his thigh as a pillow. "Boat gone?" Dean queried.

"Boat gone." Sam replied, the two words bitter with failure.

"Plan B?"

"Wait for Jerry."

"Oh." Dean said, curling himself up tighter against the cold.

"Oh." Sam agreed, staring bleakly out across the water.

---

It didn't take Sam long to realise that sitting on an exposed shore line when you are exhausted and bleeding and your brother is about three heartbeats away from a coma was a bad idea. He shook Dean gently out of the half-slumber his brother had been trying to fall into, "Dean. I'm gonna go find shelter. The Siren must have had some." He wasn't quite sure why he was explaining things to Dean who probably wasn't understanding them. He lifted his brother's head off his leg and set it gently down on the rock and then pushed himself up to his feet, managing on the third attempt.

Sam headed straight for the centre of the small island, the one place he hadn't already been to in his headlong circumnavigation of the island. Fortunately he found a small cave there, he ducked his head in briefly, noting what looked a sleeping area and then headed out back together his brother.

Dean was asleep again by the time Sam got back and Sam nudged his brother repeatedly until Dean stirred. "Come on, Dean. I've found shelter. I can't carry you, my shoulder's bad. You need to walk. Okay, Dean?"

"Five more minutes," Dean sleepily pled and twisted over to his other side.

Sam shook his brother a little harder, "No, Dean. Up. Now." He tried to mimic their father's commanding tone, feeling a stab of guilt as he did.

"Up now." Dean repeated and his eyes opened to thin slits.

Sam stood and then offered a hand down to haul his brother upwards, slinging his brother's unbroken arm across his shoulders and starting to stagger towards the shelter. It took far longer than Sam had recalled to return to the shelter and he settled Dean as quickly as possible inside. Sam stripped off his own jacket and draped it over his brother's shivering form, noticing the too-blue tinge to Dean's lips.

"No sleeping, Dean." He commanded, "You know the rules about hypothermia."

"Jus' a little sleep." Dean begged, "M'so fucking tired. Jus' a little sleep."

"Please, Dean. Stay awake for now. Come on, just a little longer and Jerry'll find us."

"Jerry couldn't find a whore inna brothel." Dean mumbled but Sam was at least glad Dean seemed to be responding to Sam rather than the random statements of earlier.

Sam glanced around the shelter for anything to start a fire with but there wasn't so much as a scrap of wood. Sam pulled his lighter out of his bag and then placed the bag in the centre of the room, adding anything that looked remotely flammable in the shelter to it. He loved that bag but saving Dean's life was top of the list of worthy causes to lose a bag to. He rubbed a thumb against the book engraved on his lighter and then flicked it open and lit the corner of the bag.

The flame sparked fitfully then died. Sam cursed and tried again and again but the bag was soaked through from the water and was refusing to even entertain the idea of catching alight. The only flammable thing in the bag would be the two remaining strips of barberry and it wasn't worth burning those for two seconds of heat.

He returned to his brother and Dean crawled closer, instinctively seeking the source of heat. Sam wrapped his arms around his brother, pressing him closer to try and preserve what little of their body heat hadn't already been sapped by the chill of the night.

"Not time for cuddle," Dean muttered in Sam's shoulder.

"Just preserving body heat." Sam answered, pulling his brother closer, wishing he could do something more about his brother's icy skin.

"Can preserve further 'way." Dean pointed out.

"S'not the way it works, Dean." Sam waited for a response and when one didn't come, he glanced at his brother again then poked him sharply in the ribs. "Dean, stay awake, damn it." He could feel the rise of panic crawling up his throat. "Why don't you tell me a story?"

"Too old for bedtime stories."

"Nope. Never too old. Come on, Dean. Tell me a story."

Dean raised his eyes hazily to Sam and snorted, "Li'l Sammy. I 'member the day y'were born. Mom 'n' Dad'd been telling me for months that I'd be gettin' a li'l brother. Made it sound so cool. Could play soccer 'n' baseball. Then Mom walked in with you 'n' you were ugly 'n' tiny and really fuckin' loud."

Sam frowned. This wasn't quite the sort of story he'd meant.

"Swear Dad musta slipped some growth hormone shit into your bottle 'cos you were a titchy baby. Mom usta swear you'd always wake up with a smile then notice someone else in the room and you'd scrunch up that little red face, Yeah, just like that bitch face there, and starting squalling the walls down."

Sam scowled, wondering what he could say to change the track on this story but then Dean was talking and while he was talking, he wasn't sleeping.

"I was the one figured how to shut you up. Mom and Dad were having another massive fight, neither one of them had slept for days. I grabbed you outta your crib and escaped to sit in the car. Minute I set you down on the leather, you shut the hell up. So," Dean turned his gaze to Sam and prodded him in the chest, "before dissing my baby, 'member it saved our parent's marriage, not to mention my sanity."

Sam wanted to make a statement about the questionable state of Dean's sanity but refrained.

"After that, all I had to do was say 'Da, I think Sammy might start crying,' 'n' I'd get to play in the Impala for s'long as I wanted. So I decided a li'l brother wasn't so bad after all." Dean butted his head into Sam's shoulder playfully.

Sam flicked his brother's nose and stared out towards the entrance, willing Jerry to appear.


	13. Chapter 13

**Disclaimer and notes in chapter one.**

**A/N:**Second to last chapter, just really an epilogue after this one to tie up a few loose ends. Hope y'all enjoyed the ride. Sorry for the late posting again, my next long shot is trying to eat my brain and wear away my fingers!

Big thanks, as ever, go out to my wonderful beta and friend, TraSan, who is hard at work at the moment with her own fics yet still finds time to look over mine!

* * *

When Sam awoke to quiet voices and a bright light in his face, his first thought was to try and work out when he'd been asleep. His stirring obviously caught some attention as he heard a voice near him call, "Jerry, Sam's awake." 

A hand landed on his injured shoulder prompting a squeak of protest and the hand being hastily removed, "Sam, you damn fool. Open your eyes."

Sam obediently opened his eyes up to narrow slits and peered blearily up at the figure above him. "Bobby?" His vision cleared a little, enough to realise it wasn't the older hunter somehow teleported to a craggy island in the Atlantic. "Jerry," he concluded.

"You don't have to sound so disappointed," Jerry stated. "You damn boys are gonna give me an ulcer."

Panic flooded Sam and he squeaked out, "D-Dean?" His teeth chattered together as burgeoning consciousness made him aware of the fact he was very, very cold.

Jerry turned his head to address a parka-shrouded figure, "Janey?" The tiny figure wasn't recognisable under all the layers, "How's Dean doing?"

"We need to get him to the infirmary now." Janey's voice emerged from somewhere in the midst of the bundle, her clipped tone implying 'now' was actually 'hours ago.'

Sam tried to move towards his brother but his body had apparently staged a revolt during his brief slumber and refused to move from where it'd settled. "Dean!" Sam cried plaintively, hoping for a response from his brother. Answer came there none.

"Don't worry, Janey is taking good care of your brother."

Jerry's words came at odds with the litany of information Janey was reeling off, "Resps shallow, got a pulse but it's weak. Everybody got a corner?"

Sam got a glimpse of Dean's clammy face as his unconscious brother was carried out past him. "S-Siren." He stuttered in panic.

"You didn't get it?" Jerry looked horrified and Sam saw his eyes track the progression of people to where the rescue boats were moored.

"Got it." Sam reassured the man, "Just not dead yet. Takes a while."

"Well, we didn't see it on the way out and your brother can't really wait so we'll just have to take the risk," Jerry stated matter-of-factly. "Nor can you for that matter, stupid bull-headed boys." Jerry seemed like he was gearing up for a rant. "Next time you pull this shit, I want to know exactly where you are going and why. 'Might be doing something tonight,' is not enough."

Before Sam had a chance to defend himself, there was the sound of returning footsteps and a stranger's voice, "Jerry, we got Dean loaded up and Janey is headed back with him now. Second boat is ready for Sam." Sam started a little at the unfamiliar use of his name.

"Give me a hand." Jerry prompted and Sam felt arms beneath his knees and across his back, lifting him between the two men. The chill of the night air hit his cheek like a resounding slap and he felt his shivering intensify. "Steady, Sam," He heard Jerry say. "We'll get you into the warm soon."

It wasn't too long before Sam was settled on the base of the small wooden boat, hastily transformed into a human blanket pile. He couldn't rest, his eyes scanning the sea lit up by the powerful search light bolted to the front. He wasn't sure if he was looking for the Siren or his brother's boat. He couldn't see either; he hoped the latter meant Dean was already being tended to.

The journey back seemed to take six times as long as he remembered, despite the fact he was now being rowed back by one of the strongest crew members. The missing edge of desperation and fear made all the difference.

Finally the boat reached the ship and Sam was ferried away into the infirmary, hooked up to an IV, tucked up under an electric blanket and on five minute obs. Apart from that, he was left alone with his thoughts.

He had nothing much to do apart from watch the brushed metal clocks tick away the seconds, minutes and hours. His shoulder was paining him like crazy and the muscle aches lead to tremors every time he tried to move. He knew better than to do anything to attract attention. When the nurse came in to do his obs, he could hear the distant noises of people tending to his brother.

It was a long time before Sam saw the door creak open again and this time instead of it being the usual nurse, it was Janey. She looked like herself again out of the layers though there was a red flush to her cheeks. Sam lurched up to a seated position, ignoring the stretching twinges of over-taxed muscles. "Dean?"

Janey walked over to sit down by Sam's bedside, frowning down at him in a way that made Sam's stomach clench. "Dean's holding his own," She reassured him. "If it weren't for your unique situation, I would arrange for him to be airlifted to hospital. Fortunately we do have top of the range medical equipment to deal with hypothermia onboard and we're doing everything we can for your brother."

"Can I see him?"

Janey shook her head, "Not yet. You need to rest up and take care of yourself. Not to mention that Dean's immune system is likely to be very weak at the moment from a combination of the hypothermia and the ongoing problems: we need to reduce all possible outside sources of infection."

"When can I see him?"

"We've got him under heavy sedation at the moment to keep him from fighting the ventilator and to make sure he doesn't do anything to hinder his own recovery. There's another machine cycling and warming his blood. I would like to keep him under for at least a week and then we have to wait for him to come out of it."

"Is that safe?"

"There are always risks to administering any drug but your brother showed no adverse effects the last time and he will be monitored very closely for any effects this time so the risks are minimal. Much smaller, in fact, than if we were take him off sedation and he tried to pull his IV out or anything else."

That left Sam with the unenviable task of waiting, "Can I leave the infirmary yet?"

Janey snorted and shook her head, "Jerry always speaks highly of your daddy but how he managed to raise two boys without a lick of sense between them I don't know." Sam had briefly forgotten about Janey's bedside manner or lack thereof. "No, you can't leave. You came close to freezing to death on that rock."

"But I didn't," Sam protested.

"Uh-huh. Given how much you and your brother have managed to get injured in the short amount of time that you've spent on this boat, I'm going to go ahead and assume you get injured fairly frequent. From that, I can assume you are well used to needing to recover. Surely you understand the concept of recovery?"

"Recovery is what you do in the car on the way to the next job," Sam quipped.

"How are you boys not dead yet?" Janey said, half-awed and half-disgusted.

"We're lucky." Sam replied, refraining from adding, 'And in one case, we have a father with a martyr complex.'

"Well, I'm a doctor and I don't trust anything to luck. Don't forget I still have a strong set of restraints and I'm half tempted to use them on you on principle just for letting your brother out of his." Janey paused and frowned, "You know, I banned Jerry from this room to prevent anyone lecturing and disturbing you and now I'm about to do the same thing. I will promise you that the minute I think you are well enough we will be having words."

---

After three days, Janey declared that Dean was out of the danger zone enough that she would risk Sam visiting and spreading nasty germs to his brother though she'd made it clear that it was only for an hour and if Sam even thought about complaining about that then he'd be banned altogether again. The moment Sam walked into the room, he wished that maybe she'd decided to wait a little longer. Dean looked like crap, like crap that had been ground underneath someone's heel.

It was hard to find Dean beneath the machines. Sam would be ever grateful that he hadn't seen Dean while the blood-warming machine was still attached. As it was, it was bad enough. There was a ventilator tube protruding from Dean's cracked and dry lips, emitting a sibilant hiss that mirrored itself in the even rise and fall of Dean's chest. A NG tube snaked up into his nose, providing the nutrition that Dean couldn't provide for himself.

Other bags hung down below the bar of the bed but Sam didn't really want to know about what they were for. He could guess the function of one of them from the yellow liquid it contained. Various wires and leads were attached to Dean and attached to the monitors around Dean's bed; where they attached to Dean was mostly hidden beneath the electric blanket spread over his body.

Sam slumped down into the metal seat next to the bed, resting his hands on his thighs. He wanted to reach out and touch his brother, reassure himself that Dean really was there and this wasn't some induced hallucination but Dean looked so fragile right now and that's a word Sam never thought he'd have to apply to his brother.

In the end, Sam just rested a hand on top of the blankets over Dean's arm, keeping the pressure as light as he could while still being present. "Hey Dean, it's me." Sam cursed himself, how pathetic could he sound? "Janey would only now let me in. Apparently she was worried I'd spread the lurgie to you. Wouldn't be the first time. I used to bring every infection back from school that there was and I'd always be a nice little brother and share."

"Of course, being a typical older brother, you always had to go one better." Sam chuckled, "I got a bit of a stomach bug, you'd spend a week hugging the toilet puking every hour on the hour. I got a nasty cold, you got the bug that probably wiped out the dinosaurs. Even now you have to go one better on me, I get hypothermia and you have to go and get severe hypothermia. Just for once, couldn't you have condescended to get the same illness as me?"

If Sam was honest with himself, he was hoping that any moment now Dean would flutter open his eyes and talk to Sam. He knew that the strong sedatives Janey had him hooked up to made that virtually impossible but Dean had never usually been one to let something as small as impossibility stand in his way.

"Yeah, didn't think so." He mumbled, lifting his hand away from his brother and settling it back on himself.

---

Four days after that, Janey began weaning Dean off the sedation. Three anxiety filled days after that, Dean woke up. Being Dean, he couldn't do a nice normal wake-up like everyone else. Dean just had to wake up shrieking and gagging on his intubation tube and forcing Janey to sedate him all over again before he could do himself some serious damage.

Sam was fairly sure he was one step closer to a heart attack than he had been before Dean's little awakening too.

The second time that Dean awoke was more peaceful. Janey had extubated Dean so he wasn't choking on that at least. It began with a rather girly noise and then Dean immediately tried to curl onto his side, pulling at the numerous wires and leads that currently made him into a poor man's Terminator.

Sam surged up from his half-doze in the chair to grip onto his brother's arms, hoping the tight hold would reassure rather than threaten. "Dean, it's me. Settle down." Dean stilled almost immediately and his eyelids cracked open to reveal thin slits of green. "You are back in the infirmary."

Dean tried to speak but his throat must have been too sore still from having the tube down as no words came out, just a pained croak. Sam saw Dean's Adam 's apple bob as he swallowed compulsively, trying to force some liquid down his parched throat. "'Gain?" He finally managed to force the word out.

"Yep. I think Janey just has a crush on you." Sam jested half-heartedly, keeping his hold on Dean even though it wasn't necessary anymore.

Dean was never one to let something like that pass as his eyes cracked open a little wider and he croaked out, "Arms."

"Not letting go," Sam informed his brother, even if he shifted his hold a little to make sure he didn't jostle any of Dean's existing injuries.

"Girl," Dean muttered in response.

Sam couldn't help the half-hysterical laugh that pushed past pursed lips as he felt the past week catch up with him, all his hastily erected mental defences dropping at this first sign that his brother really was okay.

By the look on Dean's face, he didn't get the joke and was also pondering the possibility that his brother had turned bat-shit insane.

"Just glad to see you awake is all," Sam clarified before Dean tried to call the men in white coats in. Dean just rolled his eyes and gave Sam his 'You are being a drama queen' look. Sam shook his head, "You've been out a week and a half, Dean."

Sam regretted the words as soon as Dean took them to mean he'd been in bed long enough and tried to stand up. Perhaps fortunately Dean's strength was somewhat meagre so Sam was able to push him down with one hand firmly planted on his chest. Dean landed back on the pillows with a whuff and glared up at Sam with a comically offended expression.

"Sorry, Dean. You are on strict bed rest. Doctor's orders." When Dean opened his mouth to object, Sam just railroaded over him and kept talking, "If I were you, I'd play it up for its worth. Janey and Jerry are both saving up lectures for when we are well enough to hear them." Dean's face took on a panicked expression and Sam nodded, "I'm still considering the possibility of playing dead."

"I heard that," Janey said in a surprising sing-song voice behind him and Sam spun to find the diminutive doctor framed in the doorway. "Sounds like you are almost well enough. You, on the other hand." Janey's gaze swivelled to take in Dean and she strode over to the bedside, tutting over the tangling Dean had achieved in his mobility bid, "Don't make me get out the restraints again."

"Kinky," Dean said though his usual salubrious grin was missing.

"Sorry, half-dead men just aren't a kink of mine," Janey retorted.

"Half-dead?" Sam queried, glancing over his brother's pale form for anything else wrong that he could see.

"Sorry, bad word use," Janey apologised. "Entirely alive but looking half-dead. Anyway, I didn't just come in here to worry you. Jerry wants a quick word. He did mean just Sam but I guess if you are awake too then you can try to join in. How's your throat?"

"It's sore," Sam answered for his brother.

"Hmm but the ventriloquist act is really coming along though." Janey disappeared out of the room for a moment and returned with a small cup full of ice chips, "Here, suck on these. They'll ease it."

Dean awkwardly held the cup in his right hand, hindered by the cast and dipped the spoon into the ice, lifting it up to his mouth and then smiling in relief. "S'good," He complimented as if Janey had brought a three course meal rather than a small cup of ice.

Janey reached out and patted Dean's hair like he was an obedient puppy, "Compliments aren't you getting out of the lecture that's coming, boy." Janey glanced towards the door, "Don't worry, Jerry ain't here for the lecture yet. Just need to figure a cover story. There's a fair few folk found out about the impromptu rescue mission and rumours are running rife."

"Bet Dan is at the forefront of them," Sam said with a groan.

"Actually by the sounds of it, he's been doing damage control," Janey answered. "I think he is mighty suspicious about what is up though. You'll owe him an explanation."

"That'll be fun," Sam muttered though he could tell from the disapproving look in Janey's face that she heard.

Sam was saved from any comments by Jerry finally entering the room and heading over to the cluster of people around Dean's bed. "He show any sign of…" The bluff marine's words trailed off as he noticed Dean sitting up, spoon of ice halfway to his mouth. "Hey there, sleeping ugly. Glad you decided to join us."

Dean slurped a few more ice chips into his mouth.

Jerry shrugged and continued, "Anyway, we need to discuss some sort of cover story for the passengers. I figured you boys would like a say."

"How nice of you," Sam snarked, disliking the marine on principle for interrupting his first chance to talk properly to Dean in weeks. He felt something cold on the side of his head and raised his hand to find a damp spot. He glanced over to the direction it'd come from and saw his brother readying another ice chip missile. Sam scowled in response.

"Right." Jerry looked a little perturbed by the brothers. He walked over and settled himself in a chair close to the bed. "I've had everyone keep quiet but the rumours are flying."

"Tell 'em," Dean's still weak voice croaked and he sucked down a couple more ice chips. "Tell 'em we're fraud investigators and we heard the island was being used a drop-off point for money." Dean spooned more ice in, the quick working of his throat an indicator that he had more to say and was just trying to make himself well enough to say it, "Most of 'em will be so busy panicking that they won't question the cover story."

"And how do I explain you getting rescued?" Jerry asked, nodding along with the story.

Sam jumped in here to save his brother's throat, "We're dumb fraud investigators. We forgot to tie up our boat. Then they'll be too busy chuckling to investigate." Dean nodded his approval of that.

"Fine. I'll mention it to Dan and he'll 'let it slip' at some point," Jerry said, not making any move to leave the room. "So, how are you both feeling?"

Dean rubbed his throat, both as an excuse to get out of answering and a good part of his answer at the same time. Sam wished he could think up something similar or just any way to make Janey and Jerry go away so he could talk to his brother.

Sam was wondering if he had perhaps become a projecting telepath when Janey said, "No chit-chat. Dean needs plenty of rest." However when Sam didn't make a move, Janey huffed at him, "That means you too, Sam."

"But I need to talk to Dean."

"That's probably true but I don't think Dean needs to talk to you. Dean needs to rest."


	14. Chapter 14

**Disclaimers and notes in chapter one.**

**A/N:**Thanks as ever to my wonderful, fabulous, brilliant, funnyllama beta, TraSan.

* * *

Sam had always been quite impressed by Dean's avoidance techniques but never so much as now. Despite the fact Dean was on strict bed rest and practically tied down to the bed by a web of IVs and a tussle of blankets, Dean managed to find some convenient reason not to talk to his brother. He was half sure that Dean had somehow got Janey in on the conspiracy as every time Sam got close to wrestling his brother into talking, the diminutive doctor would appear in the doorway and state that Dean needed his rest.

Sam quickly learnt not to protest or Janey would insist that Sam needed rest too. The doctor wasn't above calling in some of the burly marines aboard who seemed to delight in forcing J.B. to get some sleep.

In the end Sam opted for what he felt would be the easier conversation first. That was how he found himself outside the door to one of the cabins. He knew all the occupants bar one were currently busy, had planned it such that he'd have at least an hour. That left ten minutes of conversation and probably fifty minutes of the other person yelling at him. He knocked briskly on the door.

"Door's open," Dan called from inside.

Sam pushed down the lever to the door and stepped inside, peering about the mess as a way to distract himself. "Hey Dan."

Dan was sprawled on his bed and his eyes snapped up to meet Sam in an instant. He scowled a little, "What do you want, J.B.? Or whatever your name is. Hope I fed you lots of useful information."

"Can I sit?" Sam asked, feeling too tired for this conversation to take place while he was up on his feet.

"Are you capable of it? I'm fairly sure of that. Can you do it? I don't know about it. How about you give me a credible explanation for why you lied to me and pretended to be my friend and we'll go from there?" Sam was beginning to think that talking to Dean wasn't going to be the easier conversation.

"I didn't pretend to be your friend." Sam tried to find a starting point, "It's just difficult."

"How about I make it simpler? You wanted the big catch to impress your bosses. I was just about enough of a sucker to believe you actually disliked the rich people rather than working for them. You and your fellow investigator played us all for fools. The end. Roll credits. Little cut scene at the end just to emphasise what an idiot Dan is. No sequel." The last was said with a dangerous flash of Dan's eyes.

Sam had promised himself that he'd tell Dan the absolute truth. He owed the man his life and Dean's courtesy of the information Dan had gathered. He just hoped the conspiracy theorist wouldn't laugh him out the door. "Mr Edenridge ain't my fellow investigator." Sam said, "He's my brother."

That got through to Dan and the man blinked then threw his head back and laughed, "Pull the other one. He looks nothing like you."

"He does!" Sam huffed, he'd idly catalogued their physical similarities one bored Tuesday after yet another incident of someone mistaking them for a couple. "He just takes after Mom more. He is my brother and we aren't fraud investigators either."

Dan said nothing, just tapped his foot on the ground and cocked his head expectantly.

Sam knew it wouldn't be that easy but he found his legs shifting, longing to just sit down, rest his hands on his knees and give the earnest puppy dog look that usually got him out of all kinds of trouble, especially with his brother. He suspected Dan was sharp enough to know that and that was exactly why he kept Sam on his feet. "We're hunters; as in the bump in the night kind of hunters."

Dan froze, not even breathing for a moment, "What?" He came back to life with a sharp intake of hair, shock and confusion splaying across his face.

"I know, it seems unbelievable." Sam shifted restlessly from foot to foot, wishing he was a bit shorter so he wasn't looming so much over the seated Dan.

"You think?" Dan's eyebrows attempting to clamber into his hairline. "So what were you doing on the ship then?"

"Investigating the mysterious deaths." Sam answered, "Jerry was in the marines with our father, I didn't lie about that, and he called us in to take a look."

Dan finally relented and motioned Sam to the bed opposite, probably as tired of Sam's shifting as Sam was. "The deaths were due to some spook then?"

"A Siren," Sam said, trying to get the words out in a rush in order to convince Dan as quickly as possible. "We thought it was a mermaid at first and there was a mermaid around. I think it was trying to warn people about the Siren though. I might have killed it by accident." Sam admitted guiltily.

"And Nathaniel's accident?"

Sam winced and ran a hand back through his hair, feeling a stab of pain from the stitched, healing slices in his shoulder. "Was due to the Siren. It lured Dean into throwing himself off the back of the boat, almost twice."

"Dean, huh? He doesn't look like a Dean." The words were absent and not really directed towards Sam.

"He doesn't look much like himself at the moment. Trust me, he hates most rich people more than I do. I think you two'd probably get on," Sam said, steepling his hands and leaning towards Dan. "I know you still have every right to be pissed at me but I would have told you the truth if I was sure you wouldn't have run off screaming."

"What makes you sure I won't do that now?" Dan leaned back away from Sam.

"I think I owe you anyway. If it hadn't been for what you said about that Wiccan girl then we might not have got the ingredients to kill the Siren then me and Dean would likely be dead."

"You killed the Siren with patchouli oil?" The note of humour in Dan's voice came as a relief. It wasn't forgiveness but it was a start.

"No, I wish. Most of the stuff was rubbish but there was enough to repel the Siren away from the island and then we just had to wait for it to drown." Sam replied. "Unfortunately the bitch stole the boat and I had to sink it to avoid her surviving."

"I didn't think you were stupid enough to leave the boat untied." Dan stated proudly.

"I was stupid enough to leave it in the water," Sam said, mentally kicking himself again. "Even Dean could see how stupid that was and he was hypothermic at the time."

"Is your brother alright?"

"Yeah," Sam exhaled his relief. "It was a bit touch 'n' go. Just lucky that Janey is that damn good. He'll be recovering and climbing the walls for a while yet."

Dan chuckled, "He really is your brother, isn't he? You've got the exasperated little brother tone down pat." Dan paused and leaned forward again, tapping fingers on his jeans. "So what's your name?"

"Sam," Sam answered quickly. "Sam Winchester."

"Like the rifle?"

Sam snorted, "Yeah, like the rifle. Our dad said he's an ancestor of ours. Dunno if he was bullshitting us or not."

Dan looked nervous for a moment then asked, "What you said about your Dad and the car crash, that was true?"

"Pretty much. A demon caused the car crash so it's kinda complicated." Sam twined his fingers, nervously rubbing his fingers with the pad of his thumb.

"Oh." Dan sat back but this time it wasn't about putting distance between himself and Sam but rather a simple instinctive act from surprise. "I'm sorry."

"Me too." Sam said, letting the silence fall between them, loose and easy rather than taut. "Look, I need to get back to Dean. I don't like leaving him alone for too long. We okay?"

Dan chuckled, low and not entirely born of humour, "Ask me tomorrow?"

Sam nodded and unfolded himself from the bed, heading towards the door. "I will," He said over his shoulder and stepped out of the door.

---

It was another two days before Sam got the opportunity to talk to Dean. The cruise was now on the inbound leg of the journey and perhaps the death of the Siren had been some turning point as the sun had come out. The once harsh metal deck was now covered in sun recliners, filled with rich people in various states of repose.

Dean had been released from the infirmary with a strict warning from Janey to take it easy. Somehow Dean had translated that to taking the best spot on the deck and stretching out on a deck chair. He still looked too pale but was rapidly turning to pinkish-red, showing especially on his arm compared to the grubby white of the cast. He didn't appear to be lacking for women offering to rub sun tan lotion on or add new telephone numbers to the compact directory that comprised Dean's casted arm. Apparently being a fraud inspector didn't put them all off.

Sam had to cross the sun-heated deck quickly to stop the sun bed next to Dean being taken by a bleach blonde. He threw himself into the chair, moments before the blonde would have sat, earning himself a pout off the blonde and a scowl off Dean whose sunglass-shrouded eyes were making his expression annoyingly difficult to read.

Sam just glanced towards the blonde's retreated anorexically-thin backside and arched an eyebrow up at his brother in a 'Would you really want that?' expression.

Dean's replying smirk was all the answer Sam needed.

"Look, we need to talk." Sam started to say.

Dean immediately thumped back against the back of the chair, wincing as he jarred his still-healing arm. "We really don't."

"Yes, we do."

"Don't."

"Dean, we need to…"

"Don't."

"DEAN!" Sam hissed, not caring that he was attracting more than a few stares from the people sun-worshipping on the deck.

"Don't," Dean replied with another smirk.

Sam rolled his eyes, "Look. I know you had some deal with Janey to avoid talking with me but you can't escape now."

"I didn't have a deal with Janey," Dean protested his innocence. "She just had great timing."

"Fine," Sam stropped. "But that doesn't mean you can't talk to me now."

Dean sighed and tilted himself up to seated position, turning to sit side-on to the deck chair and face his brother. "Fine, Sam, we'll talk but I still don't know what we have to talk about." He held up a finger to forestall Sam. "Yeah, I jumped off the side of the boat but I think 'Siren in my head' falls under the category of 'Things I'm not really responsible for.'"

"What about the things you said?" Sam wished he didn't sound quite so pathetic but he wanted to ask.

Dean frowned and then his whole expression widened in a surprised oh, "Come on, Sammy. That's the Siren speaking, not me. You haven't been stressing yourself over that, have you?"

Sam resisted the temptation to scuff his foot along the ground like a recalcitrant schoolboy, "Maybe?"

Dean leant forward and for a moment, Sam thought his brother was going to spill out some secrets. Instead he just cuffed Sam on the back of the head. "Idiot. Rule number two hundred and thirteen in the Winchester handbook: Never believe shit that people say while possessed."

"But you weren't really possessed, you were you." Sam protested, rubbing at the sore spot on his head.

"I was me, fine. Do you know what one of my best skills is?" Before Sam could make a suggestion, Dean continued, "Lying. I'm great at lying. I lie so often I sometimes convince myself. Guess which skill the Siren decided to use? I'll give you three guesses 'cos you can be a little slow."

Sam scowled, "It didn't sound like lies."

"Again, I'm good at lying. You can't be very good at lying and have people figure it out at the same time."

"You aren't that good at lying to me," Sam pointed out.

Dean shrugged, "I'm not usually trying that hard." Sam wanted to believe him but there was that niggling doubt at the back of his mind.

"What you said wasn't true."

"That's what I'm trying to tell you." Dean said, swivelling back onto the sun lounger and letting his back thump against the towel. "Seriously, you not been reading that dictionary I got you? Look up the definition of 'A lie.'"

Sam grabbed the side of his brother's lounger and tugged sharply, a little too sharp as instead of Dean being pulled towards him, the motion sent Dean flying off the other side of the chair with a startled 'Wha?' Moments later, Dean's head appeared on the other side, sunglasses hanging off a little lopsided and a wince of pain set in his features. Sam scrambled off his chair, almost tripping in his haste to get to his brother. "Shit, sorry Dean. Here?" He offered an arm to help his brother up.

"Not an invalid." Dean growled, trying to push himself up off the hot metal floor with his one good hand and failing miserably. A brief nod of the head was the only sign that he was conceding to allow his brother to help him up. "What the hell was that for?"

"I was just trying to pull you across." Sam said, words soft and apologetic. "I think I pulled a little too hard."

"You think?" Dean hissed, rubbing at his sore hand.

"Shit, Dean, your arm…" Sam motioned to the still-casted arm which Sam swore had acquired a couple more numbers since Dean had tumbled off the chair. He briefly scanned the surrounding chairs for any stealth blondes.

"No shit," Dean grouched in reply. Sam felt Dean's rubbing at his injuries was a little ostentatious but felt guilty anyway. "Let's just get this shit cleared up before you end up killing me. I said some stuff I didn't mean, at least didn't really mean. I also jumped off a boat so I don't think my judgment is sound here. Frankly, the only thing you should be apologising for is the dumb-ass stunt of leaving the boat into the water with the fucking Siren." Sam opened his mouth to begin that apology but was cut off by a shake of Dean's head, "Don't even start. Just know that it'll be your job to wash my baby when we're back and she's been stuck in Jerry's dusty garage for a month!" Dean smirked, "If I'm feeling nice, I'll even let you have a cloth."

"Given your growing lobster impression, I doubt you'll even be able to sit in your baby once we get to shore."

Dean frowned and removed his sunglasses, peering down at his chest, "Shit. Why didn't you tell me?"

"I would have thought all those women offering to rub in sun lotion would have given you a clue," Sam pointed out.

Dean just smirked and licked his lips.

"Dean!" Sam shook his head, "Would you like me to put some on your back?"

Dean pouted, "Can't I take up one of the other offers?"

"You really want their hands near you?"

"Better than my little brother's."

"Fine. When you are back in the infirmary with an STD, I'll be sure to tell Janey all about it."

"Pffft. I'm not stupid enough not to use protection."

Sam tilted his head and glanced down to Dean's reddening body, "Uh-huh."

Dean scowled and grabbed the plastic bottle of sun tan lotion, awkwardly squeezing a fair amount of the white goo into his palm and rubbing it gingerly into his chest. "Happy now?"

"Ecstatic." Sam said, leaning back on his own sun lounger and peering up at the sky, wondering whether he could get away with stealing Dean's sunglasses. Before he could make a grab, he heard a low rumbling noise. At first, Sam thought it was just the boat's engine sounding a little loud but there was something almost musical in quality. He glanced over to where Dean was back to blissing out on sunlight. "You heard that?"

Dean tilted the sunglasses down his nose in order to stare directly at Sam, "You hearing things?" There was no disguising the hint of fear in his voice.

"Nothing, Dean." Sam quickly reassured his brother, watching suspicion flicker across Dean's reddened face. He could still hear the noise though and he stood up from the lounger, slipping sandals onto his feet as protection against the metal deck and following the noise. Common sense dictated after recent events that following a noise was not a sound strategy but curiosity won out. He peered over the side of the boat, keeping a firm grip with his arms on the railing just in case.

The source of the noise was immediately evident. The mermaid splashed along the side of the ship, her mouth open and the noise emanating from within. She smiled up when she saw Sam and, with a quick flip, she disappeared back under the water. Sam caught a brief glimpse of a long scarred line on her torso before she vanished back under the water. It took a while for Sam to realise he was grinning and when he did, he couldn't help a laugh.

The smile stayed on his face as he returned to his previous spot, leaning over briefly to snatch the sunglasses off his brother's face and perch them on his own.

"Hey," Dean protested, glowering over at his brother. "What's the hell did you do that for? Why you grinning?"

Sam stared up at the artificially dimmed sunlight and continued grinning, "Nothing, Dean."

A/N: The End. Thanks to everyone who has read this far. Hope you enjoyed it!


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